The Wii Fit Balance Board is a console April 30, 2008
Above: WiiNintendo takes Wii Fit for a 2 hour test run last month
The idea? That the Balance Board packaged with Wii Fit isn’t an accessory at all. It’s a console, just the like Wii or even the PlayStation 3.
You were wondering when Nintendo would update the Wii? Unveil a Wii 2? Good news: The Wii Balance Board is it.
Some might argue that no, the Balance Board is an accessory, like the Wii Wheel (awesome fun, by the way) or the Wii Zapper, but they’d be wrong.
Those two bits of white plastic enhance the Wii console. They bridge a gap between traditional gamer and non-gamer by mimicking their real-world behavior and mapping it over a video game. The Balance Board, on the other hand, is its own little world, and creates as much of a new market for video games as the Wii and Wiimote did when they launched in November 2006. Enhances versus creates. It’s a subtle difference in wording, but it will make all the difference once developers start to treat the board as a console with its own fanboys and girls and audience.
If you think they won’t, then you’re again one of the many people who first dismissed the DS, and then the Wii, for the very same reasons. And you’ll be wrong again with Wii Fit and the Balance Board. As always, there’s hard data to back this opinion of mine up, starting first in the markets where Wii Fit has launched and is currently launching.
Check out the rest at Infendo
ALSO… WiiNintendo received an advance copy of the US version of Wii Fit and is currently running a “Wii Fit Experiment”, so STAY TUNED FOR THAT!
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Can you plug it in to your TV and play it? No, you can’t. You need a Wii to play it. IT IS NOT A CONSOLE. You make no sense.
@ima420r
did you read the rest over at Infendo?
Let’s reassure ourselves; what is a console? It’s not just a piece of hardware that runs software, but it can also be a virtual emulator. It’s simply a box or room where the magic happens. Then the Wii Balance Board may possibly redefine what a console is. Sure it’s portable but it certainly can not be called a handheld. It could be way more than just an accessory and/or controller. Imagine the possibilities!
What if it has a built-in hard drive/flash memory/SD slot that can be read by the Wii console auto-syncing through bluetooth. What if the Board can download the games from the channels so you can play without having the carry the game discs with you where you go. What if there’s some sort of wireless adapter that connects to the TV ports and views the contents of the Board. How does the Board connects to the Wii? Will homebrew applications be able to run off the Board?
The answers to these questions will soon follow.
// Roth
a console is a device that can play video games.
Last time i checked the wii balance board couldnt play video games without a nintendo wii, therefore it is an accessory.
Care to prove me wrong? please do.
Sega CD?
I think the main point of the article was that the WiiFit balance board sold almost as much as the PS3 in Japan. If developers made games compatible just for the balance board, then those games could compete directly with the PS3.
If it’s impossible to play a Sega CD game with only a Genesis, and it’s impossible to play a balance board game with only a Wii, then the games can be consider to be for separate consoles.
That’s my opinion.
@Bob:
From Yahoo’s online dictionary:
console
NOUN:
4. The portion of a computer or peripheral that houses the apparatus used to operate the machine manually and provides a means of communication between the computer operator and the central processing unit, often in the form of a keyboard.
If a keyboard is a console, then the Balance Board sure as heck is one too. Plus, the Wii + Wiimote + Nuchuck + Balance Board = Wii 1.5. Add these ( http://www.i-glassesstore.com/iglasses-video-hr.html ) glasses, and you have Wii 2.0
http://wiinintendo.net/wp-content/wii2.jpg
you’re taking the incorrect definition of a console.
the console you’re referring to there is a means of operation of a piece of equipment, like the buttons on a television or washing machine. This is more commonly referred to as a “controller” like a video game controller, a console to controlling the video game.
The definition of console that the person who wrote the article was a “video game console”, a device which is used for the playing of video games; quoted from the article “just the like Wii or even the PlayStation 3.”
The point i was trying to make was that the balance board cannot be a console in this sense, as it is simply an accessory to the Nintendo wii.
The entire article is ludicrous and makes pathetic claims, like saying “Wii Fit is 1/50th of the size of the smallest PS3 game. ” I’m no math expert (well i am actually) but if we assume wii fit is around 4-6gb in size (not out in the uk yet so i dont know if its dual layer), that would make it only 1/10 of the LARGEST POSSIBLE playstation 3 blu-ray disc game, let alone the smallest.
I completely question the credibility of the article and the sanity of the (for lack of a better term) fanboy who wrote it.
Well, I can’t vouch for the sanity of Infendo’s bloggers, but I definitely see where he is taking this.
True, 1/50th the size is quite an exaggeration, but it is significantly smaller.
What he is getting at is that Wii Fit expands the Wii’s capabilities beyond what was previously possible… to the extent of the combination nearly being worthy of Wii 2. While as a stand-alone piece of hardware it has little use, it can revolutionize homebrew… Not just Wii homebrew, but computer software that receives feed from the Balance Board, Wiimote, etc.
It can also revolutionize high-budget Wii games, even if it is unlikely. From what I see, the Wii and Balance board combined makes a whole new system.
If you really look at the Wii Fit’s game disc, it’s actually 1/50th the size because the rest are dummy files to fill in the space on the disc.
They sometimes do the same with DS games and a lot of PS1 games, and other CD-ROMs way back in the 90s.
// Roth