The trademark filing Siliconera found is good in PAL territories. Naturally, one immediately thinks of the pulse-detecting Wii Vitality Sensor that debuted to thunderous lolwuts at E3. I don't know of any other device, existing or planned, that could measure one's relaxation. And while I'm seriously interested in what kind of chill-out game Nintendo thinks it might make with this, that does not mean I want to play it.

Wii Relax - note the space between the words - had been a project of Italian developer Pub Company and was thought to be an April Fool's joke at one point. The site for this thing is blank, indicating Nintendo may have bought or C&D'd it to oblivion. Curious.

BTW, WiiSittingOnOne'sAss is in development with a listed delivery date of "whenever" and comes with a La-Z-Boy attachment for the Wiimote. The Nunchuk is a plate of nachos. I've also registered WiiSittingOnOne'sArse in PAL territories.

Will WiiRelax Be Nintendo's First Vitality Sensor Game? [Siliconera via Destructoid]

The concept for the sensor came about a few years back, around the same time Nintendo were working on their face training game for the DS. During those intervening years the company have sought the input of university professors, along with other people with experience with medical equipment, in getting it just right.

But just right for what? Just what kind of games - or programs - are Nintendo working on? While acknowledging the potential for horror titles, Iwata says the software the company "are trying to propose first" is:

...a video game with a theme of relaxation, which is completely opposite from traditional ones, to enrich the users' lives. Especially among those who are constantly busy, I am sure you have experienced not being able to go to bed even when you are so tired after a busy day at work and coming home late at night... What if you were able to visualize how to unwind and relax, or check the condition of your automatic nerve by simply inserting your finger in the device once a day? We are conducting some tests internally at Nintendo, and found some patterns among our employees, like improving automatic nerve condition as the weekend nears or vice versa. Seeing what their condition is actually like, they can "visualize" how they are looking forward to weekend. And see completely different patterns on each individual person.

Sounds a lot like Wii Fit and Brain Training, only instead of jumping on some scales or tapping at your DS, you're slipping your finger in the Vitality Sensor and measuring your stress levels. And when you look at Brain Training and Wii Fit's sales, maybe you should get that laughter out of your system now...

Reggie tells Fast Company that the same confusion—and maybe even some mockery—followed the introduction of the Nintendo DS and the Wii Remote, two Nintendo endeavors that have turned out to be pretty darn successful. He says we should expect the same forehead-smacking understanding of the Vitality Sensor's capabilities when the software is shown.

"Until you have that software, it's tough to understand," Fils-Aime says. "If I told you that you would be standing on an oversized bathroom scale, and having fun doing it, you probably would have said, 'Reggie, I don't get it.' And yet here we are with the balance board arguably as the third largest development platform across the globe."

The whole point of this pulse-monitoring device, Reggie says, is finding a new audience, one "who hasn't yet been compelled with the first-person shooter, or an action side-scrolling adventure, or a fitness game."

Oh, I get it, Reg. I'm on board. If someone can sell me a copy of Am I Dead Yet? via WiiWare, consider me personally compelled.

Nintendo's Innovation Console: A Q&A With Reggie Fils-Aime [Fast Company]

Here are the staff of Kotaku's picks for the best of 2009's Electronic Entertainment Expo:

Best Console/PC Game

After three years in hiatus, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell returns with a stunning new look and style of play that is sure to reinvigorate a flagging franchise.

Splinter Cell Conviction (PC and Xbox 360) is Ubisoft's fifth installment of the Clancy-inspired secret agent stealth game, streamlined to make sure players never have to leave the game for instruction, objectives or back story.

Instead of wasting gamers' time with mission briefings or cut-scenes, the game projects everything into the world as you play. Mission goals appear as giant text painted across buildings, or splashed across the scenery as Conviction's Sam Fisher passes through it, cut-scenes are delivered in real-time black and white movies projected on the walls of the rooms he is standing in.

Embedding objectives into the scenery of missions isn't the only change Conviction delivers. Other new features including the ability to put Fisher on autopilot and have him take out a room full of "marked" enemies, a more stylized look for the game and interactive "interrogation" scenes.

Runner-up: Star Wars The Old Republic (PC)

Best Portable Game

In Scribblenauts (Nintendo DS) players work to navigate child-like Maxwell through a hand-drawn world on his quest to collect Starites. The side-scrolling puzzle game does have a significant twist. To aid Maxwell on his journey, players can drop items in the world simply by writing the word on the DS screen. Developers boast a substantial dictionary of words that include everything from guillotines to robot zombies, all of which players can interact with.

Runner-Up: The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (Nintendo DS)

Best Downloadable Game

In Q-Games' PixelJunk Shooter (Playstation 3) you have to rescue miners trapped underground by piloting a spaceship through the maze of tunnels. Miners aren't the only thing you'll find underground, some areas are also filled with pockets of lava or water. Blasting holes under these pockets allow the liquid to spill out. If the lava mixes with water it forms rock, if it mixes with miners, you have less miners.

Runner-Up: Shadow Complex (PC and Xbox 360)

Best Original Title

Brutal Legend (Playstation 3, Xbox 360) gives players control of epic-roadie Eddie Riggs who has been sent to a fantasy heavy metal world to do battle alongside headbangers and musicians. The game's fiction is all pulled from the sort of art you'd expect to find on bad heavy metal record albums, and its humorous story is backed by a hefty cast of voice actors including Jack Black, Lita Ford, Rob Halford and Lemmy Kilmister.

Runner-Up: Alan Wake (PC, Xbox 360)

Best Sequel

Ubisoft's willingness to reboot their stealth franchise and turn it into something different will go a long way in making Splinter Cell Conviction (PC, Xbox 360) a hit.

Runner-Up: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PlayStation 3)

Best New Hardware

When Microsoft unveiled Project Natal (Xbox 360), their controller-free motion controller, during E3 earlier this month the reaction was almost incredulity. Not that Microsoft would be able to garner any attention with another motion controller, but that a high-definition camera could let you interact with games without the help of anything else. Using just the camera and the 360, Project Natal can let you drive cars, swat balls or even interact with a virtual child.

Runner-Up: PSPgo

Best New Gameplay Mechanic

Scribblenauts' ability to turn your written word into a little cartoon version of the item is astounding, add to that the ability to blend these items so they interact with each other or can be wielded by the hero and you have the best new mechanic to hit a video game since Nintendo perfected the waggle.

Runner-Up: Invizimals' (PSP) monster-catching camera.

Best Weapon

In the weapon-centric world of action video games, swords, guns and tanks are all played out. Enter Bayonetta (Playstation 3, Xbox 360). The eponymous heroine with the Sarah Palin glasses can quad-wield her guns, carrying two pistols in her hands and two more strapped to her ankles, and unwind her black hair, which she wears as a jumpsuit, to turn it into giant fists, high-heeled feet and even a dragon .

Runner-Up: Left 4 Dead 2's frying pan.

Best of 2010

It has been four years since Team Ico released Shadow of the Colossus to critical acclaim. The action adventure game delivered an emotional story and reinvented the way people thought about game design, turning the titular Colossus into living levels that had to be tracked down, climbed and destroyed.

During Playstation's E3 press conference, the team unveiled their latest work: The Last Guardian (Playstation 3). The game appears to revolve around the relationship between a boy and a giant feathered creature. Not much to go on, but fans of Team Ico know the developers will deliver.

Runner-Up: Mass Effect 2 (PC, Xbox 360)

Biggest Game Changer

Sony's $250 PSPgo is more than just another portable, it's the first time a major gaming hardware company has jumped entirely into the realm of digital downloads . Its success could blaze the way for digital only gaming, its failure could set the movement back by years.

Runner-Up: Wii Vitality Sensor (Wii)

Well Played is a weekly opinion column about the big news of the week in the gaming industry and its bigger impact on things to come. Feel free to join in the discussion.

Nintendo's president, Satoru Iwata unveiled the Wii Vitality Sensor at E3 and has since explained in interviews that the Wii add-on will use light to measure bloodflow and therefore certain bio-rhythms for people who use it.

But this product's still a head-scratcher, and Nintendo did curious onlookers no help by not showing any software using the device. By contrast, Nintendo unveiled the Balance Board at E3 2007 with a live demonstration of Wii Fit.

So, we asked Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime at E3, what's the Vitality Sensor all about and why unveil it this way?

"We've been very clear that our objective is getting more and more consumers into this gaming industry we love," he said. "In our view, as we grow the consumer base, it will drive a vibrant, healthy industry. We've been able to get a certain number of consumers with Brain Age. We've been able to get more with Wii Fit. We're constantly thinking about what's the next innovation that will drive the consumer who, today, is still saying, 'I want nothing to do with video games,' to get into this industry and have a great experience. In our view, the Vitality Sensor and the software that will accompany it is a step down that path."

Fils-Aime said there are "some unique elements" not yet revealed about the sensor, details that may be revealed early this year. If not, then next year will hold the key. "The product is something we're anticipating to launch some time in 2010," he said.

Confusing as the Wii Vitality Sensor may be, Nintendo's ability to turn head-scratching into head-nodding with the Wii remote and the Balance Board suggests that this next Wii peripheral may still be worthy of the benefit of our doubts.

Seems that the WVS works by measuring the flow of blood through the user's body, a small light sensor inside the device somehow able to measure that flow and determine various characteristics of your body's workings.

For instance, by watching your blood flow, the sensor can apparently determine when and how hard you're breathing in and out. One of the "games" demonstrated with the device - which may or may not make it into a "game" for the WVS - was a simple breathing exercise, as users timed their breathing to the tick/tock of a metronome.

How this can be used to enjoyment is at this stage up in the air. And until we get a firmer idea on what games/programs will be shipping with the WVS, we won't know whether it'll be the next revolutionary million-seller from Nintendo, or the next piece of hokey psuedo-science from Nintendo. Or both.

How Nintendo's boss rewrote the rules of the game [The Guardian]

Nintendo has never been afraid of mining its own past for new product ideas — take the DS's dual screen design that echoes Nintendo's own Donkey Kong multi-screen Game & Watch.

The Wii Vitality Sensor appears to be another Nintendo dip into its own R&D backlogs. As game blog Game|Life points out, back in 1998, Nintendo released the "Bio Sensor" along with Tetris 64. The peripheral read the player's pulse by clipping onto their earlobe as opposed to the player's finger. The Japan-only Bio Sensor allowed players to speed up or slow down Tetris 64 based on heart rate speed.

The Bio Sensor was only supported by Tetris 64 before it flat lined. Nintendo is going to need a steady pulse of Wii titles for the the Wii Vitality Sensor to keep this new peripheral alive.

Nintendo ‘Vitality Sensor' Already Appeared on N64 [Game|Life]

How? Well, we're not quite sure yet, as we've not yet poked the Wii Vitality Sensor. But these beautifully unblemished, wrinkle-redacted hands have. Initially, Nintendo says, it will sense a user's pulse and "a number of other signals being transmitted by their bodies, and will then provide information to the users about the body's inner world."

Yes, it's all vague "life rhythm" non-scientific stuff, but this are Nintendo games here. They're not claiming to cure cancer or helping you prevent a heart attack. At the very least, it could make horror games more interesting.

It sounds like one of those biorhythm reading machines you find in dirty bowling alley arcades, though as a Nintendo Wii product it is of course pristine and white. The device was presented by Nintendo President Satoru Iwata at the company's 2009 E3 press conference, following a brief speech about the difficulty of video games. Without actually tying things together, he explained that the new device lets you see the information relating to the "inner world" of your body in order to achieve greater relaxation. The device attaches to the bottom of the Wii remote and then clips onto your finger.

It sounds like it could be used to measure stress levels via pulse rates, with the data then used to adjust game difficulty. That, or Nintendo just wants to see if we will pay them money to let us pinch our fingers.

Iwata presented the device and then left, making no mention of when it would arrive, how it would arrive, or even if it would arrive. Good old Nintendo-branded strangeness.

Image via Gizmodo