........but not necessarily in the right order.

They often say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but in a market already near dominated with the Guitar Hero and Rock Band game series, it seems that Wii Music, the latest 'big' release from Nintendo, isn't doing itself any favours by imitating its bigger and far more successful cousins. Despite an intensive advertising assault to promote Wii Music, just under 81,000 units had been sold by the end of October, a mere drop in the ocean when compared to the initial figures of both Wii Fit and Wii Sports in their first month of sale.
 
So what's behind this poor start of sales? Well, for a bit of a chuckle, head to Youtube and see for yourself the E3 video of Wii Music's introduction........the end 'symphony' sounds very much like a cat being neutered with nothing but a rusty cheese grater and a book on DIY cat surgery, its painful to say the least yet highly amusing.
Designer Shigeru Miyamoto stresses that Wii Music is radically different to the likes of Rock band and Guitar Hero, with no exact pressing of buttons in rhythm with the song, but merely the Wii reacting to your body motion and determining a note for you on your desired instrument. And I think thats its downfall, the music game industry has been crushed in recent years, that anything new to the party will simply need that extra special something to enable it to stand out from the more successful and established software out there at present. Time will only tell whether Wii Music will have that little bit of extra 'oomph' as it were, to launch it to the same unit shifting levels that the Guitar Hero and Rock Band series have attained recently.
Its also of interest to note that Wii Music is a stand alone game and the first of the Wii games not to be included in a package that contains the Wii console and peripherals; ie the balance board that accompanied Wii Fit, and with the game not pulling in the sales, this decision could amount to commercial suicide.
 
So with Christmas closing in fast, it will be interesting to see whether sales start to increase in the weeks leading up to the festive season; will the Wii Music be embarking on a world sell out stadium rock tour or will it end up busking on cold snow laden streets?