Vitality Sensor lives on

The Wii Vitality Sensor has not been abandoned and is still on track for a launch at some stage, Nintendo president Saturo Iwata has confirmed.

"I imagine that you are worried about that because it hasn’t been put on the market even though a long time has passed since it was initially announced," he told investors.

"This is a totally new type of entertainment, and there are large individual differences in the biological information of humans. For example, if it was acceptable that only 80 per cent of the users thought the result was natural, then we could propose this to consumers right now.

"However, we are aiming for a level of quality in which 99 per cent of consumers feel comfortable, and that is why this project is taking time to complete. I feel that this project has a lot of interesting potential, and we would like to continue this project without giving up, but it is difficult to overcome this hurdle, so please understand that now I cannot clearly say when we will be ready to put this on the market."

The Vitality Sensor was first announced back at E3 2009, though the immediate backlash from the Nintendo hardcore – many of whom believed it was further evidence of Nintendo’s abandonment of them – forced the platform holder to come out in its defence just weeks later.

The device’s no-show at E3 last year lead to speculation that it had been canned. The announcement of a Wii successor last month merely fuelled the belief that the Vitality Sensor would never make it to market.