You may remember a few days ago we brought you news that a WiiWare game using the balance board was in development by Giles Goddard and new team at Vitei. Goddard has previously worked on such classics as Star Fox, 1080° Snowboarding and Super Mario 64 so this is great news for WiiWare.
A new 1080 snowboarding game for WiiWare? Yes please!
There are a few more details on their WiiWare plans now as you can read in their interview with Cubed³. The details are still vague and sketchy, but it is good to know that their debut WiiWare game should be due by September. It is likely to be something very special indeed.
AR: The game hit Japan last September and does not seem like it would need much in the way of localisation. Considering how puzzle games on DS have been very popular in Europe and how the theme seems perfectly suited for the West, do you think Theta still has a chance of coming over at some point?
GG: I totally agree about it suiting the western market. In fact we've had a huge amount of mails/comments from westerners eager to find out more about it or just to find out how to get hold of it…Sadly there's very little chance of that happening, though, to be honest. NCL pay us to do games like this because the costs and risks are low. Taking it abroad would probably double the costs.
AR: Are you planning on doing an expansion of the idea behind Theta, perhaps one that makes use of Wi-Fi for multi-player or even sharing aquariums with others? And would this, if it ever happens, be more likely on DS or would something like WiiWare be a natural progression?
AR: With Wii Fit taking Japan by storm at the moment and more Balance Boards now in Japanese homes than PlayStation 3 consoles, have you given any thought to creative ways your team could make use of the Wii peripheral in the future?
GG: Our current game uses the Balance Board actually, and it’s due out in September on WiiWare. So yes, much like Theta we came up with several prototypes of games and picked one that we thought was the most uniquely suited to the interface. The interesting thing is that the games you would think would work well with the Balance Board actually don't. So it should be interesting to see what kind of stuff gets made for it.
AR: And is a full Wii project on the cards for Vitei in general or will you prefer to go down the WiiWare route first?
GG: Well, we are going down the WiiWare route at the moment because it makes the most financial sense. Once we have a full team in place and it’s working well together we'll move onto a "full" Wii game no doubt.
Even if it's not, any Snowboarding title by them would be stellar, no doubt. And as such, I'd be definitely giving it a purchase in preperation for when I'm able to get Wii Fit.
I would like to point out he said the game is going to come out in Sept for WiiWare. In a previous article we were told developers were not told when their games were coming out. Anyone seeing any inconsistency here?
This game seems interesting, hope nintendo starts selling the balance board w/o Wii Fit though cuz I don't want to have to buy Wii Fit just so I can play this.
September is when they expect it to be out. that does not mean nintendo told them it will be out in september. it could come out in 2028 for all we know.