Microsoft has been seeing some positive results from their new Xbox Fitness service, which has already ran more than a million virtual workouts since launching alongside the Xbox One. But it looks like Microsoft is planning to expand their service to a wider range of platforms. Dave McCarthy, who is the general manager for Lifestyle Entertainment at Microsoft Studios, was recently interviewed by Polygon about the Xbox Fitness service.
Here’s what Dave McCarthy had to say about taking the service to the next level: “We’re definitely looking at phones, looking at tablets, looking at PCs and figuring out how we provide a consistent user experience across our devices.”
The Xbox Fitness service is currently only available for Xbox One users. The service was made available to the general public back in late November, and features popular trainers like Jillian Michaels, Tracy Anderson, Tony Horton of P90X and Shaun T of Insanity. Thanks to the technology in the Kinect 2.0 sensor, the Xbox Fitness service can track the user’s heart rate, estimated calories burned, and provide feedback for improvement.
According to Dave McCarthy, since launch, the Xbox Fitness service has run nearly 1.5 million virtual workouts. The service is currently free for Xbox One users with Xbox Live Gold subscribers, but it is expected to be bumped to a small monthly fee some time next year. Although most exercise video tutorials are free, some are only available if the user wishes to buy them.
“We realize people don’t just do stuff inside the home. We’re starting to, articulate with our teams: How do we bring that experience together across our ecosystem of devices, which I think is an interesting opportunity for us as well,” McCarthy added.
The only thing that comes to mind is how Microsoft plans to use the features such as tracking the user’s heart rate and burned calories without the Kinect sensor in those specific devices. What’s your take on Xbox Fitness? Tell us what you think about Xbox Fitness in the comment section below!
