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Nintendo Explains Its Mysterious 'Quality of Life' Tech At Last

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Buried in Nintendo's financial briefing yesterday, which boasted increased hardware and software sales, was a revelation of something the company has been teasing for a while now. Nintendo has previously said that they were planning an upcoming project that would be related to "Quality of Life," yet not be explicitly video game related. But past that, they also said it wouldn't be a wearable device, as is so often the trend these days.

A non-wearable, non-video game, "Quality of Life" product from Nintendo was an enigma for months, but now the riddle has been solved. And it's exactly as weird as you may have imagined.

The device is a touchless sleep sensor, a product which will sit by a user's bed to track their sleeping habits at night. Nintendo's "Quality of Life Sensor," as they call it.

"Fatigue and sleep are themes that are rather hard to visualize in more objective ways," said Iwata. "At Nintendo, we believe that if we could visualize them, there would be great potential for many people regardless of age, gender, language, or culture."

Naturally, this will remind many of the never-released Nintendo Vitality Sensor, but Iwata said that device didn't make it to market because users had to touch/wear/operate it, whereas they have to do none of that with the sleep sensor.

Nintendo is partnering with American medical device company Resmed for the product, which will measure a user's sleep patterns and offer suggestions for improvement. Resmed actually just came out with a device that sounds more or less identical to Nintendo's own sensor, as it also is a touchless sleep monitor, and it syncs with a smartphone app. But Nintendo says their unique position of knowing how to properly gamify things will be essential in getting users to adopt their own product. Gold coins for consecutive hours of REM sleep, perhaps?

As for why Nintendo, who has been struggling as of late to ensure their continued survival as a force in video gaming, would focus on such a device that seems entirely outside their usual fare, well, that's a question only Nintendo can answer. But really, it's probably summed up best by saying "Well, they're Nintendo." The company marches to the beat of its own drum and has for decades. This could be another Vitality Sensor debacle, even if they try to distance themselves for that device, or it could be a product that catches on. It does seem further away from video gaming that nearly anything else they've done in years, but perhaps it will somehow be 3DS or Wii U integrated in a way that isn't yet being explained.

I think most Nintendo fans are more curious about what plans they have for their upcoming video game hardware than their adventures with touchless sleep sensors, but again, Nintendo does what Nintendo wants. Hopefully we'll hear more about this soon.

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How should Destiny spend its $500M budget? I explain below: