Hands-on With the Wii MotionPlus

Parz writes "In June, Nintendo will be releasing a peripheral called MotionPlus. This small device attaches to the bottom of the Wii-mote and acts as a more sophisticated motion-sensor to the controller as it currently stands. Its goal is to bring greater parity between a user's movements and the animations that they bring to life on-screen. Gameplayer got some hands-on time with the device, and they are extremely impressed." The MotionPlus will only affect new games; Nintendo has said they have no plans to add support for older titles. Virtua Tennis 2009 will be the first game to support it, and Eurogamer has a look at the game both with and without the MotionPlus.

Comments

Tennis?

[dzafez]

Man, I would like them to rerelease the golf and bowling with support, so it actually works.

yes, tennis is fascinating

[Punto]

so is bowling and golf. Where's my lightsaber?

Re:The Wii MotionPlus is an expansion device

[meist3r]

Actually since the MotionPlus doesn't use the IR sensors that's kinda pointless. This thing contains afaik 3 multi-axis accelerometers that are way more precise than what was possible during the launch of the Wii years back. It snaps into the Wiimote which is a good thing because they have sold 50 million Wiimotes and most people won't be too happy to spend another 200$ on new controllers just to have a sword fight with their mates. Nintendo already pissed off loads of people with their strange antics, now telling me I have to throw away my Wiimotes and buy new ones -no wai. Instead it's a 20$ addon which is much more feasible to most consumers, if you want it ... it's 20$ per controller extra instead of another 50 for a new one. Other than that, older games won't work because there is no real patching infrastructure on the Wii that I'm aware of. You would have to re-write potentially large chunks of the controls code to have your game react to the MotionPlus input correctly and why bother in the first place? The games that didn't have M+ don't need it now. Most games wouldn't benefit from simply "tacked on" MotionPlus just as they don't benefit from tacked on waggle or motion control. Now, games that are built around MotionPlus ... that's a different story.

Re:Breakthrough? Maybe not!

[KDR_11k]

And it requires a fairly large court (which you usually don't own and have to rent) and human opponents near you and doesn't come with computer assistance that can make anyone feel like a world class player.