After the Wii U’s failure became clear, and Nintendo began to hit hard times, the late president of the company Satoru Iwata realized that Nintendo had all of its eggs in gaming- an unwise proposition at the best of times, and especially risky when gaming is such an unstable and fickle market.

It was because of that that Nintendo announced that it would be branching out into healthcare (possibly bolstered by the success of Nintendo’s healthcare products on Wii and DS). And so, the Quality of Life or QoL initiative was announced, of which the first product, a sleep sensor, was unveiled last year, with a launch date for Spring 2016.

But as that launch date draws nearer, and information on the product remains thin on the ground, analysts have begun to think that Nintendo may have quietly dropped plans to ever launch the platform at all, somewhat like the Wii Vitality Sensor all those years ago.

“I think it’s been pushed to the back burner,” says Lewis Ward, research director for gaming at IDC. “It’s supposed to be released in the US by the end of March [2016], but I haven’t heard anything. … [However,] I do think Nintendo has always had an interest in ‘Blue Ocean’ markets and health care and the intersection with their hardware and their software is something they’ve viewed as an opportunity.”

Wedbush’s Michael Pachter paints an even bleaker picture for the health monitor.

“I think it’s probably dead – just like the Wii Vitality Sensor was before and they didn’t tell anybody,” he stated.

Pachter added: “They have been completely invisible as a company since [Iwata] got sick. The whole point of helping with lifestyle was getting people to buy more Nintendo devices – and I think they’re hurting so badly in devices that they’re trying to stop the hemorrhaging there. … I would say they’re probably focused on just getting their mobile initiative working. That’s far more important than [QoL].”

I can see how mobile games may have replaced QoL in terms of priority within Nintendo- especially since QoL was never too clearly defined to begin with. But with that said, Nintendo is a company that works on its own, short hype cycles. It is still pretty possible that they announce the device for a Spring 2016 release within the next few months.

Earlier this year, Nintendo announced that they would be diversifying a little from just video games, just so that they do not have all their eggs in one basket, like they do now. Of course, it might have been easy to forget that in subsequent months, given how much Nintendo has proceeded to double down on video games, and core video games at that, but Nintendo itself hasn’t forgotten. It’s mysterious QoL initiative, as it was called back then, was finally revealed at Nintendo’s bi-annual earnings report yesterday, and it’s… a sleep sensor.

To be clear, it’s a contact-less sleep sensor that allows the user to monitor their sleeping habits. You just place it on the bedside, and it automatically syncs your sleeping data with the cloud, where you can manage it and see patterns and statistics pertaining to your sleeping. In Nintendo’s own words, this should help track multiple health issues related to sleep.

“Inside the QOL Sensor is a non-contact radio frequency sensor, which measures such things as the movements of your body, breathing and heartbeat, all without physically touching your body,” Iwata said, and then added that he hoped the device would help its users clamp down on health issues related with lack of sleep.

He added: “Since fatigue per se is not regarded as a disease in the medical world, it is said to be a field where sufficient research has yet to be conducted. We have been fortunate to encounter several experts who have been conducting cutting-edge research in the science of fatigue. Together, we are now developing technology to estimate fatigue”.

Interestingly enough, Nintendo is not doing this product on its own. It will be partnering with Japanese Dr. Yasuyoshi Watanabe as well as US based ResMed, a corporation that develops medical equipment.

Dr Watanabe said, “Accurate and simplified fatigue measurements enable self-comprehension of the body which is very significant for contemporary humans, and I think it can be used as the benchmark to improve our QOL. We will all do our utmost to achieve this world-first product.”

Of course, to those of you who are worried this might take away from Nintendo’s focus on video games, don’t. As Iwata reiterated, Nintendo’s core focus will remain video games, and he pointed to multiple strategies to revive the company’s flagging hardware revenues.