E3 2008: Is interest in Wii Balance Board fading already?

The doors of the E3 Media and Business Summit 2008 have closed for another year (some say its final year), and as far as Wii Balance Board support goes, there wasn't terribly much to get excited about, at least not in terms of new announcements. After the hype over Wii Fit and the hope for the accessory’s future, does E3’s lacklustre showing (overshadowed by the likes of WiiSpeak and Wii MotionPlus) prove that developer opinion over the integration of the Balance Board is waning already, or is it just a reflection on what the event itself has become?

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Ubisoft's Shaun White Snowboarding: Road Trip received the most attention during Nintendo's official press conference, with the main man himself appearing onstage alongside Nintendo marketing boss Cammie Dunnaway to demonstrate the game's Balance Board controls to the crowd of fixated journos.

Other than that, it was only Wii Music that made use of the accessory during Nintendo's one hour show. As had been rumoured previously, the Balance Board is used to control drum pedals by tapping with your left and right foot. And while it looks impressive, the overall opinion of the drum simulator hasn't been fantastic to say the least.

Elsewhere Electronic Arts pulled the covers of Skate It for the Nintendo Wii, and did a good job in demonstrating the extreme sports sim's Balance Board trickery, while Ubisoft was also keen to highlight the hardware's unique butt-controlled mini-games in Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party.

But all of the above were Wii games that we already knew about (or in the case of Wii Music could easily guess) would support the Balance Board. There had been whispers that Nintendo would show off a Balance Balance Board-compatible Punch-Out!! and that EA would reveal its 'Westernised' Wii Fit rival, but neither materialised, both companies choosing to prioritise other games. Ubisoft did actually exhibit Imagine Babiez Party, but not any of its mini-games that, we're promised, make use of the Balance Board.

And then of course there was the absence of THQ's All Star Cheer Squad (a surprise Balance Board favourite amongst critics), 2K Sports' Don King Presents: Prizefighter, Activision's Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, and PheroseSoft's fabled We Move: Pain vs Pleasure - games that are only a few months from being released, but worryingly did not get a showing.

Most disappointing, however, was the complete lack of any announcements of brand new games that will make use of the Wii Balance Board. Everybody has pipe dreams of a Balance Board-controlled Need For Speed, Super Monkey Ball or action-adventure title, but there was no sign of anything of the sort amongst the dozens of developers and publishers (both big and small) attending E3 2008.

There are still some important dates in the gaming calendar where some more decent Balance Board offerings could possibly see the light of day (notably the Leipzig Games Convention and Tokyo Games Show), but as many have dubbed this year's E3 for gaming in general, the Balance Board's representation, an accessory with so much potential, was woefully disappointing.

Here’s hoping for a rosier future and so.

Posted by Andrew at 16:13