It's not enough that the Wii Fit is trying to cajole you into getting off your couch and actually engaging in physical activity -- now the DS is worming in on the action. Developer Ubisoft is rolling out My Weight Loss Coach for the handheld, and going the extra mile (ha ha!) by including a pedometer add-on which interfaces with the system. Apparently, the idea is that you'll keep the pedometer in a pocket or on a belt buckle during the day, then plug the unit into your DS and let the software calculate how much fat you've burned -- thus keeping track of your daily regimen and adjusting accordingly. The game / device combo is launching in one-croissant-too-many Europe this summer, no word on when it hits the morbidly obese States.

[Via DS Fanboy]

French game publisher Ubisoft is the first company other than Nintendo to announce a peripheral for the Wii. The peripheral takes the form of a small, plastic racing wheel with a slot in the middle for the motion sensing Wii-mote, and is to be bundled with Ubisoft's GT Pro Series and 4x4: World Circuit racing games, although the simple design -- it's basically a foam circle -- suggests to us that it should "work" with pretty much any Wii racer. We'd imagine that the feeling would be similar to that of driving a car after the steering wheel had fallen off the column, and thus hilarity will no doubt ensue. On the one hand, the Wii-eel (Wiil?) could be a great example of the increased immersion that the Wii's controller will allow; on the other, Engadget HQ is chock-a-block with pointless pieces of plastic, so we're sure the novelty of finding a hunk of foam with every Wii game will wear off pretty damn quickly.

[Via Joystiq]