Nintendo Ventures into Non-Gaming Hardware

Happy Halloween everybody!  It being a day we celebrate sin, vice, and the monsters under our beds, it would have been very thematic for me to write about Ubisoft or EA.  But it seems theyve gone to hide in the closet for the day, so instead Im just going to talk about something cool Nintendo is doing.

Its easy to forget, but Nintendos biggest competition in the gaming market are companies that have a broader market than solely gaming: Microsoft is primarily a computer software designer, and Sony produces a wide range of electronics beyond the hardware used in your Sony.   This puts Nintendo at a kind of disadvantage when it comes to company-wide profits (although apparently theyre doing rather well recently, to the surprise of no one) and Nintendo has been taking minor strides to diversify its portfolio.

Its most recent attempt is the Quality of Life platform: a small box that sits on your bedside table.  Its called a platform, but you dont play games on it: rather, it monitors you while you sleep and helps diagnose and treat sleep disorders.

How it works is thus: it monitors you via  a radio frequency sensor to measure breathing, heart rate, and periods of movement.  It compiles that data and sends it to cloud servers who analyze it, and in the morning the device will be ready to give you tips on how you could possibly improve you sleep sounder.

The Quality of Life cloud, which the system will be communicating with, will be accessible via phones, tablets, and of course game consoles, meaning they can all access and potentially use the data.

There was no further information offered by Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata, even regarding a release date or potential cost. 

Still, we know its a thing: so maybe next Halloween itll be able to point out you'd sleep better if you didnt chug half a gallon of straight whiskey.