Bill Trinen and Shigeru Miyamoto show Wii Fit to journalists last week in NYC

Last Wednesday, the Level Up staff and one of its colleagues, health writer Anne Underwood, made the two-block trek to the Le Parker Meridien hotel for a private demonstration of Nintendo's upcoming exercise game, Wii Fit. Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America executive vice president of sales and marketing and self-proclaimed "Miyamoto groupie" (more on that in a future Page 110 report) was among our gracious hosts, which put us in a VIP kind of mood. But the star of the show was product marketing manager Bill Trinen, best known as He Who Translates Miyamoto Into English. But until Wii Fit is finally released in North America, he should be known as The Fittest Man In Videogames, for demonstrating how the "game" works at various events.

Asked if we had experienced Wii Fit at previous events, we responded affirmatively, leaving Trinen to demo it and Underwood to try it out, freeing ourselves up to sample the delicious oatmeal raisin cookies that were so incongruously being made available during our preview session of a fitness game. Strange, that. But oh, so tasty.

Despite our reluctance to get our sweat on in front of witnesses, we nevertheless managed to elicit one exclusive scooplet when we asked Trinen whether there were any features that had been added to the North American version of Wii Fit following its Japanese release last year. Whereupon Trinen explained that Nintendo design boss Shigeru Miyamoto had wanted to include a mode that would allow players to weigh their pets. He wasn't able to include it in the Japanese version, but in the North American version, available May 19th, players will receive a message informing them that if they weigh themselves while holding their pets, then weigh themselves again separately and subtract the two, the difference will tell them how much their pet weighs. It's just one more reason why we've dubbed this Wii Hit.