If you were ever lectured by a parent that spending too much time on a gaming console is disastrous for your health, the Xbox One brings redemption in the form of Xbox Fitness. The app went live when the console came out in November last year. For now, it is available for free with a paid Xbox Live Gold membership, the service contains a plethora of workout videos from popular trainers such as Tracy Anderson, Jillian Michaels and P90X. It leverages Kinect to track user’s pulse as well as the energy and tempo during a workout, and uses muscle mapping to ensure the exercises are being performed in the correct way. Microsoft has revealed that it is looking into expanding Xbox Fitness beyond the Xbox One.
Speaking with Polygon, general manager for Lifestyle Entertainment at Microsoft Studios, Dave McCarthy, revealed that the company is looking at phones, tablets and PCs as possible platforms it can expand Xbox Fitness to. The aim is to figure out how to provide a consistent user experience across all of these platforms, McCarthy doesn’t say how soon we can expect Xbox Fitness to jump out of Xbox One. On the console though, since it launched, the fitness service has hosted over 1.5 million virtual workouts. McCarthy says that Microsoft is “pretty happy” with the way users have picked up this new service.