Around this time last year, I openly challenged the idea of Nintendo's “Wii Fit” game. I said that without any game-like goals toward which players could hula or squat their time away, they would be hesitant to embrace a title so transparently geared toward exercise.

I was kind of wrong. “Wii Fit” is still scarce in stores and it's even spawned a wildly popular viral game video in the form of an attractive “Wii Fit girl” hula-ing her morning away in scant pajamas.

Still, I refuse to learn my lesson. At this year's E3 video game gala, Nintendo announced “Wii Music,” their apparent answer to the “Guitar Hero,” “Rock Band” and other rhythm game series rocking the sales charts.

Unlike those games, which place plastic instruments in the hands of players, “Music” will utilize the Wiimote, nunchuk and, if possible, the “Wii Fit” Balance Board to simulate the instruments. Players will mime the motion of drumming with the Wii controllers, position them apart like playing a guitar, and so on.

According to Nintendo's resident game design genius, Shigeru Miyamoto, “Wii Music” will not enforce the risk of failure on players. Whereas “Guitar Hero” players will “lose” a song if they miss too many notes, “Wii Music” lets them play on. When told by a reporter that the game sounds more like a toy than a video game, Miyamoto replied, “Yes, that's right, and that's why it's better than a video game.”

Rather than popular rock songs, “Wii Music's” 60-song library will apparently emphasize public domain songs like “Yankee Doodle Dandy” and “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” alongside licensed music and Nintendo classics like the “Super Mario Brothers” theme. As was the case on the Wii versions of “Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock” and “Rock Band,” “Wii Music” has also been reported to receive no downloadable content.

While Nintendo's approach to the rhythm game arms race raises several questions about their entry's potential success, “Music” cannot be evaluated in a vacuum as “Fit” was, as “Music” faces an obstacle foreign to “Fit”: competition.

While “Fit” enjoyed virtually no fellow entries in the exercise genre, “Wii Music” stares down two juggernauts in Activision (“Guitar Hero World Tour”) and Electronic Arts (“Rock Band 2”), both of which have already sharpened their competitive instincts on the battlegrounds of song selection, peripheral compatibility and release dates.

In the first respect, Nintendo appears to lose to “Rock Band 2” and the more than 200 songs it will offer through track packs, backwards install compatibility with “Rock Band” and the sequel itself. “Guitar Hero World Tour” also brightened its prospects with the recent announcement that Jimmy Hendrix's music would be playable.

In terms of peripherals, “Wii Music” again loses to the tactile verisimilitude of both “Guitar Hero” and “Rock Band's” plastic instruments, the newest incarnations of which will only have improved when they release this fall. The news that “Guitar Hero World Tour” can be played with “Rock Band” instruments also works to the advantage of both games' publishers, whose previous cold plastic war had alienated players lacking the room for multiple guitars and drums in their living rooms - and their wallets. The only advantage “Wii Music” enjoys in this regard is a less expensive price point due to the lack of peripherals, though the optional Balance Board would run up the price comparably.

With confirmed fall release dates for “Guitar Hero World Tour” and “Rock Band 2,” Nintendo again finds itself lagging behind in the third area of imminence. Players without the patience for the untested quantity of “Wii Music” - which has a fourth-quarter 2008 release date - may spend their music game money on one of the two proven players instead.

The X-factor of “Wii Music,” namely everything that separates it from the rhythm game giants, remains its potential source of drawing power. Will Wii once again opt for simplicity?

Staff writer David Wilcox reviews video games for The Citizen. He can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 245 or david.wilcox@lee.net