EA Sports Active 2.0 to get heartbeat sensors and online sharing (video)

Heartbeat sensors took center stage in Electronic Arts’ preview of its sports game line-up this evening at the Game Developers Conference.

EA Sports Active 2.0 will debut this fall with a new kind of heartbeat monitor that you strap around your arms and one of your thighs. It measures your heart rate and sense your motions while you’re exercising. The motion sensors translate your movements into actions in the game, much like with the Wii Fit and Wii Sports games.

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But the heartbeat monitor gives the game more information about the actual exercise you’re getting while playing the game, which has fun activities from jumping to shooting hoops.

EA Sports Active hit the market a year ago and was one of the surprise hits on the Wii. The game took the whole challenge of exercise more seriously than Wii Fit, giving you lots of options for exercising for a long amount of time. You could, for instance, chain a bunch of activities together to get a single, complete workout. EA launched the game on the Wii and it sold millions to Nintendo’s broader audience of parents and families. And EA is already milking this new franchise. It has already launched a new supplemental Wii game, EA Sports Active More Workouts, with 35 new exercises. And now the company will be shipping EA Sports Active 2.0 as well, with different sensing gear.

Tarrnie Williams, executive producer of the game at EA’s studio in Burnaby, Canada, said in an interview that you can upload data for permanent storage online and you can share progress in physical fitness with your friends. Since you can now play it on an iPhone or iPod Touch, you can take your workout with you where every you go.

EA Sports Active 2.0 will hit the stores this fall with versions for the PlayStation 3, iPod Touch, iPhone, and Wii. Check out our video with Williams below.