3 Reasons Wii Fit is a Terrible Idea
August 3, 2007, by Erlog Nintendo, in recent years, has been known for their interesting revelations during their E3 presentations. Last year, we got exciting news about the new DS games, and also the information we were all waiting for: the specifics of the Nintendo Wii. This year’s revelations, semi-understandably, were deserving of far less fanfare. Not every year can have a console release. Some years are obviously going to be less exciting than others. There is nothing we can do about that. Unfortunately, this year’s Nintendo E3 flagship title, Wii Fit, is deserving of even less fanfare than most people realize.
Wii Fit trailer from E3 2007
Will the Wii Balance Board have a future? Will the Wii Balance Board provide realism? Will it be fun? This article is a look at Wii Fit from the standpoint of viability, and hopes to answer some of these questions. So without further ado, here are the 3 reasons I believe Wii Fit to be a terrible idea.
1. Gimmicky
Nintendo... gimmicky?
Nintendo... gimmicky?
While it could be argued that everything Nintendo has done this generation is gimmicky, I believe Wii Fit to be a different kind of gimmick. The Nintendo DS added two things to portable gaming – the touch input and extra screen. The Wii added two things – mouse-like support and accelerometers. Wii Fit just adds some pressure sensors to a board. This isn’t something new. Dance Dance Revolution has been around for almost 10 years at this point.
The Nintendo DS and Wii gimmicks moved gaming further. They added another dimension to gameplay, and made gamers feel like they were more involved with their games. Wii Fit is a high-tech Dance Dance Revolution mat, but unfortunately it can never be used to play Dance Dance Revolution.
It is not that this is something different that makes it gimmicky. The gimmickry is in the lack of innovation.
Example of Nintendo not being gimmicky...
2. No Support
The Wii Balance Board will be very limited in the types of actions that users can reliably input. The board works by having pressure sensors and determining center of gravity. However, there’s no Wii Balance Bar. Players will only be able to knock their center of gravity off kilter so far before toppling over. So the suggestion by Miyamoto of a snowboarding game is kind of ridiculous. With the type of leaning players would have to do to make that realistic we would be hearing cries of “Oh No! I fell off my Wii Balance Board and I can’t get up!” It would be the new “Oh No! My controller went through my TV,” complaint.
How it feels to be on the Wii Balance Bar... Seriously...
3. No Future
The reason that the Wii controls were adopted so readily is because it was built into the system. It is not a simple add-on peripheral. If a company would have released a device that added the complete functionality of the Wii controller to the PS2 or PS3 then that device would have failed miserably, because of lack of developer support. With the Wii Controller arrangement developers are forced to innovate and support the device. There is almost no way for it to be a failure.
Similarly to the controller add-on idea, the Wii Balance Board doesn’t have a future. Developers aren’t going to want to limit their potential audience by making them need some silly peripheral that might not add much to gameplay in the first place. That is, unless a company decides to build a competing fitness game around the board. But I think that might be a long shot.
Fitness games are definitely the next big thing
This arrangement leaves it up to Nintendo to support their peripheral, and so players who enjoy the experience will get only 2 or 3 games out of it, at most, during the life cycle of the Wii. The amount of development work put in for this kind of thing doesn’t make sense to me if I am correct about the above.
Conclusion
I want to like Wii Fit and the Wii Balance Board. I’ve drank the Wii Kool-Aid. I’ve played with my Wii for many hours on long lonely nights. It’s been a good friend so far. However, Wii Fit looks like a ridiculous idea. It doesn’t seem to add a lot of functionality like the Wii Controller did, it’s range of motion is limited by user balance, and third party developer support of any console peripheral has been scant so far. Has anyone seen any games using a Dance Dance Revolution mat that aren’t Dance Dance Revolution? No, not really.
Why this is not the standard controller for all gaming is beyond me...
Please prove me wrong Nintendo. I might like to lose some weight.
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