Just Dance marks a big inflection point in the story of the Wii and the charts. In its first three years, from the end of 2006 to the end of 2009, eight games released only on Wii hit UK #1. All eight were developed by Nintendo themselves, and none were dance games. In the remaining three years until the release of the console’s successor, five more Wii exclusive games reached the top, and four of those were dance games released by other companies. And if the first chapter of the Nintendo Wii was one that saw the wider games industry machinery struggling to fit this new mode of playing into its narrow image of itself, that had nothing on how the second chapter would go.
None of Nintendo’s Wii #1s were dance games, but they had dabbled slightly, with Wii Fit’s step exercises and with the #2-charting Warioware: Smooth Moves building up to a closing dance number back in 2007. Going back further, dance games were not a new thing, with Konami’s Dance Dance Revolution and Para Para Paradise having taken over arcades a decade earlier. Dance Dance Revolution got home releases here on the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 as well, although they didn’t reach the same level of success. My second favourite bit of my time playing EyeToy: Play involved moving around and hitting targets to the sound of Moloko, in a minigame which was soon expanded into a separate release as EyeToy: Groove.
Just Dance brought together three factors which hadn’t been combined in those previous examples. One was that since it just gets players to dance with a Wii remote in hand, it didn’t require buying any extra cameras, mats, or other kind of peripherals. Anyone with a Wii could play, which in 2009 meant a very large potential audience, much bigger than even the successful PS2 & EyeToy combination could ever access. It also made it easy for several people to play at once, given enough space, which was important too.
The second significant decision was in the choice of music. Previous Wii options had not bought into the power of pop music. Western releases in the Dance Dance Revolution series had some Natasha Bedingfield and Britney Spears remixes added in, but those games were very focused on high energy dancing and saw familiarity with the music as a bonus rather than a necessity. EyeToy: Groove went big on pop music, but even that didn’t aim quite as broad as Just Dance, which has an air of holiday camp or wedding DJ to its selections from MC Hammer to the Spice Girls to “Eye of the Tiger”. It has no songs from 2009 (not even the one it takes its title from) and the reasoning is clear: only time-honoured and recognisable floorfillers fit its purpose, the stronger the association with social events the better. It is not a game about just dancing, but specifically a game about the ageless, usually communal experience of dancing to pop music.
That leads us to the third and most integral factor in Just Dance’s success, which is that it doesn’t work. In theory, it gives you moves to replicate, and your timing and shaping of each of those moves is what determines a rating from GREAT to an x for total failure. Obviously, as you dance away, Wii remote in hand, it has no idea what you are doing with the rest of your body, so it’s only the arm movement which is measurable. Even its response to that, though, is wildly inconsistent. Over the course of a song, there is a solid chance that the better, or at least more enthusiastic dancer, will get a higher score, but on a move-to-move basis anything goes. A fan wiki contains the line, in reference to the inconsistent registering, that “because of this, the maximum score is still unknown today”.
If, say, Just Dance sabotaged the music with each failure, Guitar Hero-style, this shortcoming would be unbearable. It doesn’t, though. It’s much simpler than that, both in the song just carrying on regardless and more generally. Its presentation and features might be politely described as ‘minimal’. Nothing to top the charts has looked so barebones a proof of concept since the days of PS1 3D and Cool Boarders, and Cool Boarders actually worked. Just Dance is an excuse to get a bunch of people dancing to some universally-known songs with a contest as a barely maintained sideshow. The appeal is familiar from my experience with karaoke rooms in the backrooms of Korean restaurants, where the machines supply a score after each rendition. Those scores are generally met with bafflement and amusement, able to be a light pleasure because they are so far removed from the point of the activity. Actually working as a game would get in the way of being people together enjoying pop music and company.
Just Dance spent a total of five weeks at the top of the UK charts. Details of what else was #1 during those times after the page break.