Nintendo's weird unveiling of the Wii Vitality Sensor was certainly a head-scratcher. The device is designed to clip onto gamers' fingers and keep track of their pulse rate. Why this is a good idea is anyone's guess, of course, and the whole thing becomes even more mysterious when you realize that similar technology has been around since the days of the Nintendo 64.

The "Bio Sensor" was produced by Sega in 1998, and worked by clipping onto your ear. But other than the difference in clip point, it did pretty much what the Wii Vitality Sensor is designed to do: Took your pulse.

Sega's Bio Sensor was released with Tetris 64 and integrated into the game by changing the difficulty based on pulse rate. So, for example, if your pulse rate speeds up a lot while playing the game, the bricks would drop faster and faster. Presumably, this would force you to relax while you fit your little squares together.

As you might expect, the Bio Sensor was a Japan-only product, and did not cause a big splash there. Tetris 64 was, as far as I know, the only title that used the technology.

I realize most of the gaming community thinks Nintendo has gone a little nuts with this, but I'm fascinated with the Wii Vitality Sensor. Here's why: Before the release of the Wii, if you had told gamers that the next generation of consoles would be won handily and completely by the console with the least power, the worst graphics and the most primitive games, they would have said you were crazy. But that's what happened.

Nintendo is very, very good at creating video game systems and peripherals that make a lot of money and do a lot of things that have never been done. So I try to maintain hope that the Wii Vitality Sensor will turn out to be as awesomely innovative and useful as a Wiimote -- Nintendo has proven themselves smarter than the gaming cognoscenti before, and they just might do it again with this piece of gear.

But, on the other hand, when I try to actually come up with a single use for the Wii Vitality Sensor in a game, I draw a total blank. How about you? Is there any game that you think needs a Vitality Sensor? And if so, how would you use it?

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