Wii Fit honored at Media Arts Festival

Wii Fit was recognized by The Agency For Cultural Affairs today with an Excellence Award as part of the 12th Japan Media Arts Festival.

As with past Japan Media Arts Festivals, this year's event offered prizes for art, entertainment, animation, manga, and a special achievement. Video games are included in the entertainment category. Each category saw one Grand Prize winner and five Excellence Award winners.

In all, 2,146 items, the largest number in the festival's history, from 44 countries were submitted for consideration. From these, committees jury members selected Grand Prize and Excellence Award winners, along with 170 items that will be displayed at a public exhibition to be held from tomorrow through the 15th at the National Arts Center in Tokyo.

In the Entertainment Division, whose judges included game producers Tetsuya Mizuguchi and Akitoshi Kawazu, a unique device called Tenori-On took the Grand Prize. This device uses an interface similar to that of a video game to create a light and sound instrument.

Wii Fit was honored with the Excellence Award for showing the possibilities of game entertainment. The full English text of the reasoning for the award along with commentary from the reward's recipient, Shigeru Miyamoto, can be seen at the Japan Media Arts Plaza website.

Outside of Wii Fit, other Excellence Prizes went to Gyorol, Fontpark 2.0, Carbon Footprint, and Exhibition Transform Yourself. Pictures with English descriptions for all these works can also be seen seen at the Japan Media Arts Plaza site.

Last year's festival had more representation from the video game field. Wii Sports took the grand prize last year, with Metal Gear Solid 4 and Monster Hunter Portable 2nd both getting the Excellence Prize.

Although Wii Fit was the only video game award recipient this year, a number of games were selected by jury members for display at the National Art Center exhibition. Aquanaut's Holiday, Devil May Cry 4, Afrika, PixelJunk Eden, Ryu ga Gotoku (Yakuza) Kenzan!, DS Literature Collection, Band Bros. DX, Dragon Quest V, Dragon Quest IV, Knights in the Nightmare, Pokemon Platinum and Echochrome were given recommendations as "games," and will be given one playable kiosk each at the exhibition. Street Fighter IV was given a recommendation for "visual image," and will be shown as part of a video montage with eleven other visual entertainment products.

Awards were handed out today at a ceremony held in Tokyo's Roppongi area. Miyamoto was absent for the event, but accepting the reward in his place was Wii Fit "sequence director" Kunio Watanabe.

Wii Fit will also be shown through two playable kiosks at the exhibition.