Microsoft gets grunting with Xbox Fitness

Microsoft has announced a subscription based fitness application for the Xbox One. The Xbox Fitness service will use online stat-tracking, an extensive library of interactive videos, and the Kinect sensor to run gamers through a gauntlet of torturous exercises. Grand Theft Auto V’s waterboarding scene has nothing on Shaun T or Jillian Michaels screaming in your face to do one more set of leg lifts.

Using precision Kinect technology, Xbox Fitness can read your heart rate without a monitor, see which muscles are most engaged by measuring the power, force and transfer of weight in your body, and track the quality of your performance by measuring your balance, tempo and form.

That’s not creepy at all. Xbox Fitness will be included at no extra charge with an Xbox Live Gold membership subscription until December 2014. Microsoft has not revealed what Xbox Fitness will cost after that date.