Nintendo's Balance Board has been the rare gaming peripheral that's actually managed to survive past its Wii Fit-accessory status and become somewhat useful in other games, and it's a wonder that more third-party peripheral companies have yet to take advantage of this unexpectedly large market. Snakeybyte, a third-party peripheral maker of some distinction in Europe, has been salivating over the chance to crack the American market, and is firing a massive volley with their Premium Fitness Board. As the first non-bundled alternative to Nintendo's best-selling Wii Fit + Balance Board set, we wanted to see how it stacked up to the original and had the opportunity to put the unit to the test with a handful of games to find out.

Upon opening the box we noticed a few things that immediately came to mind at first glance. First, the overall form mimics general look of Nintendo’s own Balance Board with few exceptions. To help it stand out from the norm there are activation lights on each side on the unit to denote occupation and add a stylish and slightly functional look. Second is a unique LCD readout in the front that doubles as a standalone weight scale which can be switched from metric to American scales (i.e. kilograms to pounds).

As with Nintendo's Balance Board, Snakebyte's Fitness Board requires four AA batteries to use it, which almost feels like a missed opportunity for innovation, given the company also makes Wii remote alternatives that allow for charging (with compatible AA rechargeable batteries) through a USB connection. In fact, unlike other Snakebyte peripherals, there's no batteries included with the package, although actual battery life performance seems on par with Nintendo's board (roughly 60+ hours), and less if you plan on using its non-gaming scale features. Perhaps this is a fair tradeoff because the surface has more textured feel for better stability during more active games; ultimately the additions are nice but probably make little difference in the long run.

Indeed, it seems that you do get more luxuries than expected and that’s good because the general feel of the board itself isn’t actually debatable of the bold “premium” moniker, even though it isn’t liable to immediately fall apart either. Upon closer inspection it appears that the platform legs on the bottom, while supportive, lack the rubberized ends in favor of basic cylindrical plastic ends that tend to cause a fair bit of noise when under stress. It's also lighter than Nintendo's, which initially makes it seem like cheaper construction, but still managed to hold up quite well, In fact, I learned the Snakeybyte is actually capable of measuring up to 180 kg (roughly 400 lbs), a big improvement over Nintendo's 150 kg (roughly 330 lbs). The design may not feel as compact as Nintendo's, but it certainly gets the job done.

Now the when it comes to actually playing Balance Board-enabled games there are some remarkable discrepancies during our comparison tests between the original accessory and the titles we chose. Even the sync processes were different; unlike the Nintendo model, which can instantly be synced anytime, the Snakebyte unit is limited to the initial setup and power operation within the games themselves. This may become an annoyance for some, as the constant need to sync the Board to games, coupled with some troublesome compatibility issues (see below) will definitely cause some frustrations when you simply want to hop on and get down to business.

The performance greatly varied between the games where the Premium Board played flawlessly on Nintendo's Wii Fit Plus with the same expected accuracy and response, and worked exactly like the (Balance) board it comes packaged with. Majesco's Tetris Party Deluxe also did rather well after a brief recalibration, but felt a bit awkward overall as you have to lean in different directions to play on select mini-games (to be fair, this awkwardness is inherent to the game itself, and not the Board). While those two games performed perfectly with the Snakebyte, what did bring it to its knees was Activision's 10 Minute Solutions, which had major issues in just trying to get calibrated. I almost gave up trying to have the game recognize the presence of the accessory and when it did communication hang-ups prevented me from using it to its fullest, even with full batteries.

Quite opposite from Nintendo’s unit, which worked flawlessly after only the initial sync process; Snakebyte's did eventually work, although those times were few and far between.  To its credit, my experience with 10 Minute Solutions leads me to believe the Board's syncing issues have more to do with that particular game than the actual hardware itself.  As they like to say, caveat emptor...

You might be asking yourself just what makes Snakebyte's Premium Fitness Board exactly a 'premium' product? To be honest, not all that much, apart from increased capacity (400 lbs), neat activity lights, and ability to be used as an electronic scale. Snakebyte's offering is lighter and flimsier than its counterpart, but manages to remain a high-quality product that still holds up nicely and feels like solid construction. The Board's performance seems to rely heavily on the games played as its calibration efforts can vary from game to game, ranging from excellent to very poor. If you don't mind its aesthetics and are willing to take on its syncing procedures, Snakebyte's alternative to Nintendo's Balance Board is a reasonable - if uneven -replacement.