Ex-Nintendo Exec Comes Down Hard On Wii Fit

As Wii Fit continues to maintain a 2nd place holding in software sales just behind Wii Sports, the criticisms continue. The latest smackdown comes from Ex-Nintendo Europe president David Gosen. Who just so happens to be working for Microsoft now. In a recent interview with Develop magazine, Gosen voices his opinion on Wii Fit, and the balance board peripheral.

“What Nintendo have done with the Wii is truly fantastic - there is no question about it. But I think sometimes there is a thin line between gimmick and great gameplay,” . With this quote, I agree with Gosen. I don’t think that the Nintendo Wii is a gimmick, or even the Wii Fit balance board. What I do believe is that a lot of times in the video game world products are sold to people based more on the premise of what it can do, than what it actually does (**cough** Virtual Boy **cough**). After this statement though, I pretty much disagreed with everything Gosen had to say.

“We’ve seen some research that says 60 percent of people who bought a Wii Fit play it once and don’t play it again. So we have to get the balance right, because what we are doing is bringing new consumers into the market for the first time in their lives sometimes - and we have to treat them with respect”. This is probably my favorite line from the interview, because I love it when execs pull out mystery statistics about the competition. I could come out and say that 85% percent of the people I know had their Xbox 360s Red Ring Of Death (RROD) on them (I wonder if Red Ring Of Death is an official term in Microsoft’s vocab).

To keep with the issue of the interview, Develop asked Gosen about their own peripheral game, Lips. In case you didn’t see it at E3, Lips is a new karaoke game coming out on the Xbox 360 (because gaming karaoke isn’t a gimmick..ha). The new microphone will be wireless, feature motion sensoring, and will have LED lights that make me think of a prop at a Cher concert.

I Wonder If They’re Jamming To Some ‘Simple Plan’

After reading the entire interview I think David Gosen needs to study some more before he dives into an interview. First, don’t trash talk competition that’s beating you at the moment (Nintendo Wii). Second, don’t come out and call something a gimmick when it’s first coming out of the gate and hasn’t had time to prove itself yet. After about a year I would say that Gosen could legitimately criticize the balance board if it hasn’t made progress. Until such time, just keep your mouth shut and talk about your own products. Lastly, the most important tip is to not defend an argument against “gimmicky” products by mentioning how fun your ‘karaoke’ game is going to be. Those kind of points only hurt, not help.