New Super Monkey Ball rolls on Wii

Sega's Super Monkey Ball has never been shy to embrace new hardware. The series had launch-day debuts on the GameCube, Wii, and iPhone.

The action-puzzle game seemed a natural fit for Nintendo's Wii Balance Board, but it was nowhere to be found when the peripheral debuted in a bundle with Wii Fit in May of 2008. Sega will rectify that oversight next year, as the publisher confirmed today that Super Monkey Ball: Step & Roll will arrive on the Wii in winter of 2010.

After debuting in Japanese arcades, Super Monkey Ball arrived in North America in 2001 as a GameCube launch title, relying on the system's analog stick controller to let players subtly tilt a playfield to guide sphere-encased simians through treacherous obstacle courses. Since then, the same basic premise has sustained the franchise through a number of iterations on the Game Boy Advance, Xbox, PlayStation 2, and Nintendo DS.

For more on the series' first outing on the Wii, check out GameSpot's Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz review.