Alright well everyone knows that when something gets successful you see a dozen cheap rip offs released within a year or so of the origionals release. We all remember when Tamagotchi became a success in North America within a few months we saw Dinky Dino's , Pocket Pikachu's , Dino Pet....etc...etc...
The GamesIndustry is not immune to the copy cat syndrome infact I'd say our industry is built largely around stealing peoples ideas and mass producing similiar content. We have seen it happen many times. Games like Brain Training games and the Petz games are a really big hits. So with everybody ripping one another off what will happen to WiiFit?
My bet is that within a year their will be over a dozen Wii games that utalize the Wii's balnce board and I can almost guarantee a couple complete rip offs. I mean WiiFit has amazing selling potential due to the fact that the United States of America is now the most obese country on the earth. With all these millions of fat or obese people wanting to work off their milkshakes we are bound to see sales success.
Fact is much like BrainTraining became a huge craze because parents and elderly citizens realized it would be healthy and help their brains WiiFit is targetting all of those not in shape. Now Nintendo must have a sequel in the works already much like they had back to back BrainTraining games come out. My bet is that UbiSoft and Sega will both take the WiiFit idea and utalize the balance board. Sega created its own brain training game for PSP and has shown a willingness to enter the casual market. UbiSoft's Petz label got utalized for the first time in a long time after Nintendogs got released.
My bet this year at E3 and E For All,TGS we will see the following games announced
-WiiFit2 (Nintendo)
-Fitness trainer (UbiSoft)
-Get Fit PS3/360 (Sega)
-Some fitness game (EA)
With all the publishers embarassed over choosing to back PS3/360 over Nintendo I can see them all following Nintendo's lead head on. Meaning alot of games for that couch potatoe to play to bulk up. With EA,UbiSoft already utalizing the balance board its only a matter of time before the Fit hits the fan
-JC7
"In God We Trust - In Games We Play " - Joel Reimer
