Virtual Boy, Super Scope, Gameboy Micro and Wii Balance Board

I have started to fear that the Wii Balance Board may be the next in a line of misses that occasionally surface under the Nintendo label that for the most part doesn't miss.

For the most part if it has the Nintendo label, it is going to make money, and make consumers happy. Rarely does this company miss. However, like any company that walks the line of cutting edge technology, sometimes there is the occasional whiff. Is the Wii Balance Board in danger of falling into this rare, but costly area.

The Virtual Boy is often looked at as the biggest mistake in Nintendo's history. While the reasons are not as clear the sales (or lack thereof) most everyone agrees that the Virtual Boy was a flop. Ask an avid 1990's pop culture junkie and most will not even know what the Virtual Boy is. This is most likely because it was on shelves for about 10 months before Nintendo threw in the white towel.

The SNES Super Scope had similar results. There was lots of hype and little fun. The light gun for the next generation of gamers. This gun came with 6 games (all on one cartridge) right out of the box. The bigger than needed bazooka like gun looked cool, and every young boy who saw the commercial wanted to have one of these oversized pieces of plastic. I for one was lucky enough to get one for Christmas the first year it was available. It never once worked out of the box, however I am not sure that is the reason it failed.

Gameboy Micro had little (ha ha ha) success on the market and if you blinked you may have missed it. Sure, it will be floating around retro stores and ebay for years, but in terms of really making an impact in the gaming world it is about at a 1 out of 10.

Is the Wii Balance Board the next in line for failure? As someone who was highly excited for and even one who enjoyed Wii Fit, I still fear that this high tech piece of technology may be one that soon collects dust in a closet or basement. I hope this is not the case, but like the others before it, the recipe for disaster is present.

When taking another look at the reason behind the failures of the other Nintendo products there is one thing they all have in common - a lack of solid games, in number and in quality. While they all had other flaws, it is clear that the games that were available for the before mentioned failures were lacking.

The Virtual Boy had an absolute lack of gaming. There are several games that I feel are revolutionary for that system, and while there are neck cramps and headaches that go along with the system, there are also some very fun times that can be had with it. If there were more Wario Lands and Mario Clashes for that system instead of Waterworlds and Virtual World Baseball I believe the system could have been revolutionary.

The Super Scope is the same way. The games it came with were nothing more than short mini games that simply showed off what the Super Scope could do. The sheer volume of available games though is poor. Yoshi Safari is arguably the best game that uses the Super Scope, but after that, It is hard to even think of another title. I understand that a gun limits what type of games you can have, but if done correctly shooting games can be a blast, no pun intended.

Gameboy micro is a little bit of an exception, as more than anything it just took advantage of another systems games, and an incredibly small size. Still there was little reason to go get one of these if you already had a GBA.

Now we get to the Wii Balance Board. Game developers need to program and pump games out that are well developed and take advantage of this amazing piece of technology. The question is does this become another flavor of the week, or will games continue to be released. Again I stress Quality and Quantity.

As for me I, I hope that Nintendo learns from past mistakes and keeps promoting the Wii Balance Board. I took a chance and purchased the Shaun White Snowboarding game and Rayman TV party – both which use the balance board and both which have pretty decent reviews.

Only time will tell in this case. Lets keep our fingers crossed.