WiiNintendo

It seems that everywhere we turn lately, we are bombarded by advertisements, reviews, and everything else to do with Wii Fit.  I’m still not sure I’m going to purchase the game yet, but I am pretty sure I want a Wii balance board (for games like We Ski).  I am hoping that Nintendo decides to sell them separately.  All this excitement for Wii Fit and the Wii Balance Board got me interested.

So, as I was looking around, I see an eBay auction for the Joyboard.  According to this Wiki article,

“The Joyboard is a balance board peripheral for the Atari 2600 video game console. It was released in 1982 and was used by standing on top of it and leaning in a certain direction.”

Is Miyamoto only copying off a previous attempt by Atari and Amiga?  Now, while it is true that history repeats itself, and that there is nothing new under the sun, I still think this is quite odd.  However, as I continued to delve deeper into this, I realized that there has been a thing called the “balance board” for quite some time.  So it seems that Miyamoto and Nintendo are merely capturing the essence of fun that many people have enjoyed ever since someone put their first piece of wood on a small rock.