New Peloton Lanebreak Similar To Video Game: Is It More Than Meets The Eye?

Fitness company Peloton Interactive Inc PTON launched a new gaming feature for some of its users. Here’s what one venture capital firm thinks about the launch and the future of Peloton.

What Happened: Peloton launched Lanebreak recently, which the company calls a “gamified workout experience.” The offering is exclusive to users of the Peloton Bike and Bike+.

Workouts are offered in increments of five, 10 and 20 minutes with music and come with several game modes.

Loup Fund managing partners Gene Munster and Andrew Murphy shared their thoughts with what the offering from Peloton means.

“Peloton along with everyone else is entertaining the gaming space,” Murphy said, while adding that the headline was a bit misleading. “You’re in this game mode, listening to music, three different types of challenges.”

Murphy said this is important for Peloton as it adds to the existing user base of Bike users. Murphy added that the new Lanebreak adds more value to Peloton via software updates in a move similar to what Apple Inc AAPL and Tesla Inc TSLA do.

One question for Peloton is the stickiness of the new Lanebreak offering.

“Problem with gamifying workouts is it gets old,” Munster said.

Both Munster and Murphy said they could see themselves competing in the Lanebreak game one of every 10 workouts they do on the Peloton Bike.

Related Link: Peloton Q2 Earnings Highlights: Revenue Miss, CEO Transition, Restructuring Plan And More 

Why It’s Important: The Loup Funds duo were pleased with their personal experience with Peloton Lanebreak and think that it shows how the company wants to innovate.

“They hit and they miss, that’s what we want to see from an innovator,” Murphy said. “I hope they continue to push it.”

Munster said that no other fitness companies are doing the software updates like Peloton and this could be a game-changer with some small adjustments.

“I suspect they’re gonna come up with some other workouts,” Munster added.

Munster said Peloton will be around for the next 10 years.

“It’s not all bad news with Peloton.”

Peloton recently experimented with boxing classes and the continued experiments could be a push to add new subscribers and also increase the value for existing subscribers.

The introduction of Lanebreak comes as the company undergoes a CEO transition, which got started on a rough note of former fired Peloton employees crashing the call.

PTON Price Action: Shares are down 3.64% to $28.55 on Tuesday afternoon at publication. Shares have fallen over 78% in the last year.

Photo: Courtesy Peloton