OREANDA-NEWS. February 09, 2011. Following Rave Reviews of West Virginia Event, KONAMI Launches Inaugural DanceDanceRevolution State Championship Tournament in State of Hawaii to Promote Healthier Lifestyle

Kids across the U.S. are getting off the couch and getting their dance on. Following the lead of a successful tournament throughout the state of West Virginia, KONAMI today announced the 2011 DanceDanceRevolution Hawaii State Championship Tournament, designed to promote the importance of exercise and healthy lifestyles for youths all across the Aloha State and nationwide.

Hawaiians have seen the difference DanceDanceRevolution can make since first integrating the game into public school physical education programs in 2007. The tournament will elevate these programs to a whole new level, and give students a chance to show off their hard-core "DanceDance" domination.

"KONAMI is dedicated to helping in the fight against childhood obesity by creating fun and innovative ways to keep kids moving and healthy," said Shinji Hirano, President of KONAMI. "We had tremendous success partnering with West Virginia for their statewide program and wanted to expand this exciting competition to other states around the nation. We look forward to working with Hawaii on this challenging event geared toward improving the health of our young people and seeing the youth of Hawaii's 'DanceDance' talents."

The 2011 DanceDanceRevolution Hawaii State Championship Tournament is open to all public elementary, middle and high schools that are currently using DanceDanceRevolution in their physical education curriculum. Scholarships, trophies and other fantastic prizes will be up for grabs to students who prove that they can really bust a move.

The 2011 DanceDanceRevolution Hawaii State Championship Tournament details are as follows:

Regional Championships February 19, 2011
Hosted at Waialua Elementary School, Waialua HI
First and Second Place winners from each region will be invited to finals

State Championship Tournaments February 26, 2011
Aloha Tower, Honolulu HI
Top three places are awarded with scholarships and prizes

About DanceDanceRevolution in Schools

As the original pioneer in the music game genre and a continued leader in using video games as an entertaining way to promote fitness, KONAMI first introduced the DanceDanceRevolution video game series into public schools' curriculum in 2006 through its groundbreaking partnership with the State of West Virginia's Public Employees Insurance Agency (PEIA) and West Virginia University's (WVU) Motor Development Center. Both entities were inspired to enter into a partnership with KONAMI after West Virginia's Games for Health research project demonstrated that  DanceDanceRevolution was an effective tool for increasing children's activity levels and overall health while having fun! As part of the initiative, the state developed a school-based DanceDanceRevolution curriculum and collected data in order to analyze and report on the health and academic benefits of using the game in schools. With its proven success throughout West Virginia, the program expanded to Hawaii in 2007. Once again, the partnership has encouraged kids to get healthy, happy and grooving to the new beat of an active lifestyle.

About DanceDanceRevolution

Since it was first introduced to North American video game consoles in 2001, DanceDanceRevolution has received a tremendous amount of exposure for its health benefits. A major part of the new trend in gaming that takes players off of the couch and away from the joystick,  DanceDanceRevolution has recently been introduced as part of the physical fitness curriculum in multiple school districts in the United States. Additionally, it has been a part of numerous research studies on childhood obesity.

For more information, please visit:  http://www.konami.com/ddr .

About KONAMI

KONAMI is a leading developer, publisher and manufacturer of electronic entertainment properties and traditional trading card games. Konami's software titles include the popular franchises METAL GEAR SOLID, Silent Hill, DanceDanceRevolution and Castlevania, among other top sellers. KONAMI is also the manufacturer of the wildly popular Yu-Gi-Oh! TRADING CARD GAME, which has sold more than 22 billion cards worldwide. The latest information about KONAMI can be found on the Web at  www.konami.com . KONAMI Corporation is a publicly traded company based in Tokyo, Japan with subsidiary offices, KONAMI Digital Entertainment Co., Ltd. in Tokyo, Japan, KONAMI Digital Entertainment, and Inc. in the United States and KONAMI Digital Entertainment GmbH in Frankfurt, Germany. KONAMI Corporation is traded in the United States on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol KNM. Details of the products published by KONAMI can be found at  www.konami.com .