The new E3 this year was an interesting change of pace from the E3’s of yore.  Gone is the gamer paradise we once loved, and replacing it, a business to business summit meant mostly if not solely for industry.  As such, E3 had a lot less to offer in terms of playable demos, but a lot MORE to offer in terms of company press conferences.  The big 3 got together to show off their current projects and shiny new toys, and Nintendo was certainly no exception.  It’s big headliner?  The Wii Balance Board a new peripheral that will be released along with their new exercise based game Wii Fit.

The Wii Balance Board is an interesting piece of technology.  It is essentially a raised step, much like one of those exercise steps you would see in the nineties.  The difference, of course, between this and any normal exercise step, is the immense amount of technology involved.  The Wii Balance Board has several analog pressure sensors spread over its surface.  It uses these sensors to read changes in position and pressure at different speeds and strengths.  In addition, the Balance Board comes with its own built in programming which calculates the body’s center of balance based on its pressure readings.  If you lean to the right, the reading will shift to the right, if you lean forward, the reading shifts forward, and the same goes for any possible body configuration short of falling down.

The uses for the Board in Wii Fit are simple.  The user will be instructed to do several different balance and flexibility based exercises.  By detecting the changes in the pressure of the mat and the body’s center of balance, the game will be able to tell if the gamer is doing the exercises correctly.  In addition, the board can calibrate itself to your weight, allowing accurate readings in exercises such as pushups or squats.  In addition, it will use its pressure sensors as switches in a callisthenic like aerobic exercise in which you step up and down onto the board in time with music, according to the game’s directions, much like DDR.

However, Wii Fit is not the key draw of the balance board.  The most interesting thing is that it is a completely independent peripheral.  The board connects independently to the Wii, and it not connected to the Wiimote.  Thus, a Wiimote and any other peripherals connected to it may be used freely in conjunction with the board.  Since the Wii seems to be a supporter of games with several different control schemes, developers are looking at this as an interesting way to include “foot and body” movement into Wii game design, without necessarily boxing gamers in to being forced to use the balance board.

The applications of the Balance board are numerous and interesting.  The most obvious use, would be in Indy sports franchise “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater.”  The balance board could be used to control basically everything movement related in the game.  Crouching would cause your character to crouch, and jumping would cause your character to jump.  Balancing on rails or with grabs or stalls could all be handled via the Balance Board’s center of balance functions.  Even manuals can be executed via shifting your weight on the board and balancing.  The trickiest part of the game would be programming in “trick” commands.  Thus far, the only method of control that has been proposed is the ability to program certain tricks to sharp shifts in weight or changes in pressure.  For example, four basic directional grabs can be executed via leaning down and grabbing the front, sides, or back of the balance board.  Kick tricks in the four directions could be executed by delivering a sharp kick to the front back or sides of the board.  Finally different grins and stalls can be executed via the location of the center of balance when the rail is contacted, and changing in the middle can be executed via sharp changes in balance (which can be picked up differently than the normal “don’t fall” balance inputs).

Another possibility for the Wii Balance Board lies in the “On Rails Shooter” genre, specifically with the popular title Time Crisis.  This game, a favorite in the arcades, uses a pedal to cause the player to crouch behind cover, and to come out into the open to shoot.  The balance board can easily be used as a substitute for this pedal, allowing the game to operate as a functional analog of how it would in the arcades.  However, this isn’t the only possibility.  Perhaps a more interesting method of control would be to allow the player to stand on the balance board, and crouch when he wants to take cover.  In fact, while we are on the subject, there was a series of “On Rails” motion capture arcade games made by Konami, which used the body’s full range of motion in controlling a character.  The on rails shooter “Police 911” took advantage of this motion capture technology, but never made it to a console release.  By using the Wii Balance Board, the movement of the entire body can be detected, and games such as this can finally make a console appearance.

The coolest thing about the Wii Balance Board though is its ability to work in conjunction with a Wiimote and its peripherals.  Any fan of Wii boxing knows that the Wii can only simulate body control by guessing how the Wiimotes would move with the body.  For example, in Wii Boxing, dodging left and right is detected via the tilt and motion of the Wiimotes in your hands, so you can effectively duck or dodge, simply by moving the controllers and keeping your body still.  There is a similar effect in many of the games in Wario Ware, smooth moves.  The games in which you have to jump, crouch,  march, hula, or bend, can all be accomplished by tilting, twisting and flicking the Wiimote, which is great if you are trying to get high scores to win and unlock new game modes, but still falls under the category of “a massive amount of cheating.”

The Wii Balance Board will be able to fix all of this.  Much like the Konami full motion game “MoCap Boxing” dodging and ducking will actually be initiated via body movement.  Also, going back to Wario Ware, a sequel to Wario Ware smooth moves is being planned, and the Balance Board is a real possibility for control.  Microgames can now include balance and movement control as well, as Wiimote control, making the games such as Jump rope, Shake Your Tail, Squat, and Don’t Get Stung, that much more interactive.

In the end, the best thing about the Balance Board, is that for any game other than Wii Fit, it is completely optional.  Not every gamer wants to have a full body experience, or a workout when they are gaming.  Considering this, the Balance Board ties perfectly into Nintendo’s philosophy of giving gamers options, rather than forcing them to use just one control scheme.