There's a lot of buzz and all-but-confirmed rumors swirling about a motion control remote for the XBox 360 and a break-away motion controller for the PS3. While it is obvious that these are a shameless effort to gain favor with the casual audience that's made the Wii so wildly popular, I am excited for one reason: Steven Spielberg's Boom Blox.
The current Wii-exclusive, balls-vs-blocks party puzzler has been universally praised by critics and the few gamers that have picked it up. Its compelling knock-stuff-down gameplay has proven to be a more visceral, transcendent thrill than any other game I've exposed my friends and family to... well... ever. I have friends that come over every weekend now just to knock over each other's castles. The game suffered from criminally poor marketing; I've only seen television advertisements for it in the morning on Toon Disney, in which Steven Spielberg's name is only casually dropped at the very end. We here at 61FPS were all very excited by the pre-release buzz, and I still had a hard time deciding to plunk down the $50 entrance fee on release day for what looked like a glorified Jenga. Whether a result of lousy promotion or a curious price tag, the game has clearly suffered, selling an unimpressive 60k units in its first crucial month.
Shortly before the game's release, EA's Amir Rahimi, senior producer on the game, said "there's definitely the possibility of going to other consoles." At the time, this seemed like a ludicrous statement, as Boom Blox would be absolutely no fun if it didn't feel like you were actually throwing balls at these towers of blocks. However, if both Sony and Microsoft's current-gen consoles had widely available single-handed motion controllers, this unlikely Game of the Year contender may finally find its audience.
Porting Wii games to the XBox 360 or PS3 may become a serious trend. If a Boom Blox port does happen – and is successful – who knows? Any Wii party game could follow the same route. Rayman Raving Rabbids was a huge hit on the Wii and a massive flop on every other platform simply because the game's fun relied almost enitrely on the Wii remote. Carnival Games, controversial though it may be among the hardcore Wii crowd, was an unexpected blockbuster in sales. Nintendo's shiny white box continues to dominate the market, so development on such games would probably still focus on the Wii, but giving publishers the ability to develop a similar experience for all three current-gen consoles simultaneously can only lead to increased resources, production values, and (hopefully) better games.
XBox 360 "Newton" render via Gizmodo
