Video Games can Improve Performance in Sports – An Empirical Study with Wii Sports Bowling

According to studies from the medical domain it can be assumed that the training of sensomotor abilities by the use of video game consoles positively affects performance in real life situations. With this in mind we investigated the assumption that – at least for bowling novices – training of bowling games with the Nintendo Wii can have positive effects on their performance on a real bowling alley. So we conducted an empirical study with students from the University of Bamberg. One group of participants took part in a video game training session while the other group received no special training. After that participants of both groups played on the bowling alley. Results showed a significant positive effect of console training on the mean scores in bowling.