Nintendo MotionPlus hands-on: blah.

So yeah, we got a chance to check out Nintendo's new MotionPlus accessory. Wii Sports Resort is the only title announced right now that requires (or supports) MotionPlus, and we gave a couple of the games a run (like sword fighting and jet-skiing). Basically we're a little at a loss as to how this does anything truly differently or more effectively than current controllers. We get that it's got additional MEMS accelerometers that supposedly bring the relationship of motion and gameplay to a more 1:1 ratio, and for the motion types we tested, it did seem to work -- but the experience and level of immersion felt basically the same. So what's the deal? More after the break.

Gallery: Nintendo MotionPlus hands-on: blah.

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It's a tricky issue -- gyros, relational movement, real-space, accelerometers, etc., and we've already got the take of the company that helped Nintendo produce the hardware. We also asked the booth rep to explain why we needed the MotionPlus for Sports Resort. Not just because the software requires it, but why it NEEDS it, and not just a regular Wiimote. We were told that with previous Wii Sports games, players could kind of get by with a waggle (this is where he started gesticulating with some what random movements), but now you could play all this crazy stuff, like swords and jet skis.

Earlier we asserted that it felt like most of this could be accomplished with a regular Wiimote -- or what the Wiimote originally promised. That may or may not be the case -- it's hard to say for sure what Nintendo's built-in accelerometers are truly capable of, although we're supposed to take it that this level of motion control isn't in spec. The gyroscopic relational movement MotionPlus is supposed to add just didn't really seem to build on that experience. to make it more accurate and effective in real space.

So why not move to improve the Wiimote's native experience instead of trying to hock another $30 accessory? When you're basing your titles on motion control, changing your system's motion control capabilities strikes us as a monumentally bad idea. What's worse, it strikes us like Nintendo's charging consumers to make good on what we were supposed to be getting in the first place. As of right now, we'll pass -- at least until Nintendo can really bring it home as to why this is the next important thing.

[Ramifications @ Jul 16th 2008 4:33PM]

I was hoping this wasn't the case...but in the back of my mind...I was guessing this would be the case.

[Bryant @ Jul 16th 2008 4:35PM]

Your post seems pointless... kind of like a "First Post"

Anyway, whatever. I get the feeling this is one of those addons that requires decent developer support. Somehow, I doubt that's going to happen.

[oGMo @ Jul 16th 2008 5:15PM]

Yeah... developers can't figure out what to do with the motion stuff NOW, adding "more precision" is just going to result in "more precise crappy controls".

[craig#2 @ Jul 16th 2008 7:41PM]

@Bryant: WTF is your problem? Like you offered anything to the table? Not that it matters at all anyway, but you said almost the exact same thing as Ramifications. Oh, and he didn't say first, but you kind of did. F$@# off, jerk.

[Ramifications @ Jul 16th 2008 10:08PM]

What I meant was... when I first heard about it, I was afraid it was kind of a gimmick, but was hoping it wouldn't be... then joystiq reviewed it and based on this post, essentially confirmed those fears.

[craig#2 @ Jul 17th 2008 3:45AM]

You made perfectly good sense, Rami.

[Grey Acumen @ Jul 17th 2008 8:35AM]

Not really. Nintendo is selling it with a "Wii" game. Does that make it a gimmick? THINK PEOPLE. What are close to the 3 top selling games right now?
Wii Sports, Wii Play, Wii Fit.

Why do "hardcore" games hate these games? Because casual yuppies eat this up like crack cocaine.

But you act like this is a bad thing. Hello!! Wake up and smell the strategy. This allows 1:1 motion. What have hardcore gamers been clamoring for? 1:1 motion.
Nintendo just gave it to you. Oh but wait, in order for developers to actually USE it, we're going to need to make sure it gets set as a standard.
But how can they possibly make such a small little addon a standard? Oh yeah, by packaging it with a "Wii" titled game that every casual consumer eats up like slow kids eating glue and playdough.

This is an obvious strategy by nintendo to ensure that the thing the hardcore gamers have been clamoring for will actually get supported by the casual crowd, which will in turn ensure that developers will see enough of these things getting bought to warrant making a game that supports this stuff.
Otherwise your precious "1:1!" would fall to the wayside.

Besides, I'm willing to bet that half the reason developers were having trouble with motion controls is because they couldn't get the precision they needed with that missing axis. By having this in place, developers won't have to sacrifice precise movement controls to make up for that, which should make it easier for developers to use motion controls without it feeling like "tacked on waggle"

So seriously, quit complaining or doomsaying so we can actually get 1:1. If you were that much of a casual gamer that you can't recognize the ability to flail around in Wii Tennis, then you wouldn't be commenting on a blog about this. Those that are casual enough to think Wii Tennis plays just like real tennis will still buy this game just because it has "Wii" in the title. Hardcore gamers can buy it because it has 1:1 in the description.

[ds @ Jul 17th 2008 2:26PM]

I'll save everyone the time of actually reading these 100+ comments. Engadget failed on reporting this thing. It does work, and it provides much more accuracy to the wiimotes motion-sensing. It will sell like hotcakes because it is bundled with another Wii Sports game which will make it one of the biggest if not the biggest sellers yet for the system.

Yes, Nintendo releases a crazy amount of peripherals, but they always have -- power glove, ROB, etc. The point of the Wii console is to change the way people interact with the game which pretty much requires different input devices. That is their strategy and it is working. They will keep creating and selling peripherals and people will continue to buy them.

[Abscissa @ Jul 19th 2008 12:11AM]

"Yes, Nintendo releases a crazy amount of peripherals, but they always have -- power glove, ROB, etc."

Why does everyone always think Nintendo made the power glove?

[ds @ Jul 21st 2008 3:42PM]

No, they did not design and manufacture it, but it was an official licensed peripheral. Small distinction IMO but you are right.

[Carl M @ Jul 16th 2008 4:33PM]

With the current Wiimote, it's not possible to do the sword fighting. There's no way the system can accurately predict where you're holding the sword.

With the MotionPlus, the on-screen sword can follow exactly how you move the Wiimote.

Do you understand now?

[Podaman @ Jul 16th 2008 4:47PM]

"The remote still won't know its true position in space."

This was posted by sswift on ve3d:

"If it does what it says on the box, this would be revolutionary. But I suspect what we're going to get is more trickery.

For those keeping score at home, the WiiMote contains an accelerometer, and an infrared camera:
wiili.org/Wiimote

The accelerometer is what tells it when you are swinging it about or shaking it. It is offset from the center of the remote, which allows it to also detect rotation on a couple axes to a limited degree. The infrared camera is used when you point the remote at the screen. By noting the location of the two infrared led's in the "sensor bar" you can determine where on the screen you're pointing, and whether you're rotating your wrist around the screen's central axis.

What this MotionPlus accessory likely adds is a gyroscope. This gyroscope would tell the Wiimote what orientation it is being held in. By combining this information with the information from the accelerometer, they could truly tell a golf swing from a simple shake of the controller.

But this is still a trick. The remote still won't know its true position in space. It will have the information it needs to calculate that, but since it's passive detection based on acceleration and rotation values, it will be subject to drift, and won't be entirely accurate. But it will still be a hell of a lot more accurate than what we have now.

One thing does concern me though. That thing plugs into the nunchuck port, and I don't see another plug on it for the nunchuck. If they don't announce a wireless nunchuck, then that means you won't be able to use this new addon and the nunchuck at the same time. And that means that while this addon would allow you to swing a sword much more accurately, you won't have the ability to move around as easily as you could in Zelda with the stick.

The fact that this device isn't integrated into a WiiMote II would seem to confirm these fears. There's no need to integrate it into a new Wiimote if you can't use it with the nunchuck and games won't be able to use both devices at the same time.

So in summary... This little gadget will likely make motion detection on the Wii more accurate. Our Wii baseball bats won't jiggle about anymore. But we still won't have the revolutionary device which knows its exact position and orientation in space at all times with the kind of precision that would allow a character onscreen to perfectly mimic your sword swings.

Don't get me wrong; it should allow you to swing diagonally, or do an overhead chop; but if you start holding the sword diagonal and off to one side in front of you like when blocking with a light saber, that's when it's likely to screw up."

[Ryan Block @ Jul 16th 2008 4:49PM]

You can golf -- same holding position, same motion, just down instead of up. You can play tennis, too -- again, same motion. This stuff is all familiar, we're not seeing how the MotionPlus is necessary.

[sr1329 @ Jul 16th 2008 5:11PM]

It's pretty clear that the current wimote does not know if you are pointing it down or up on a golf swing, in other words it knows only relative position. The sensor bar allows it some sense of absolute position but I can't imagine it is very good and it really isn't as anyone who's played Wii boxing can tell you.

With 2 gyroscopes at different positions on the remote its ability to track absolute motion is enhanced.

[Hold McGroin @ Jul 16th 2008 5:14PM]

So, genius, what happens when you swing the sword and your on-screen character's sword hits an object while you swing through it? Make it as accurate as you want, 1:1 sword fighting does not work.


Do YOU understand now?

[oGMo @ Jul 16th 2008 5:18PM]

@CarlM: Wrong. This is just more accelerometers. This does not help with absolute positioning at ALL. The current accelerometers can already give controller orientation and motion. Adding more is not going to give you absolute positioning: to do that, you STILL need an origin mapped. If this was some neat RF device that triangulated controller position without having it face the screen, THEN it would do what you say.

As it stands, it's complete BS. I wouldn't be surprised to have someone open one up and find nothing in there but a chip that says "user paid $30, enable game".

[atomicthumbs @ Jul 16th 2008 5:44PM]

It does use a gyroscope. A tuning fork gyroscope, to be precise: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibrating_structure_gyroscope#Tuning_fork_gyroscope

[Carl M @ Jul 16th 2008 5:46PM]

The Wiimote by itself has an accelerometer and the IR camera. The IR camera only works when it's pointed at the sensor bar, so for the most part it can't help very much.

Let's review what an accelerometer is. Imagine a lead weight that's suspended in the air by a couple of springs pulling in opposite directions. Add some sensors above and below the weight that tell you how close the weight is to the sensors, do the same for the left & right sides, and for the front & back sides. The sensors are all attached to a fixed framework that is then attached to the Wiimote.

If you don't shake the accelerometer, it can tell you which direction is down. If you SLOWLY rotate it, the weight will always shift downward, so you can detect tilt. (Note that it cannot detect yaw, or a twist around a vertical axis.)

If you quickly move the accelerometer, it can detect a jerk and the direction thereof. However, once the weight starts to bounce around, it is no longer possible to detect tilt. The problem is that you have two forces acting on it (gravity plus the user's force on the Wiimote) and there's no way to tell the two apart. You can measure one or the other, but not both at the same time.

To repeat, it's simply NOT POSSIBLE to track general motion using only an accelerometer. No amount of software refinement will help.

To track general motion, you must have additional data from additional hardware sensors. The MotionPlus adds three gyros, which are MUCH more complicated (and expensive) devices than accelerometers. (Cheap decent gyros simply did not exist until this past year.)

A common rate gyro will tell you how quickly an object is rotating around a given axis. You need 3 of them to measure how an object is rotating in 3D. This information allows you to measure tilt at all times, and thus you can take the accelerometer data and separate out the gravity force from the user force and measure how the overall device is being moved.

Of course, even this is not perfect, due to "drift", measurement inaccuracies, range limitations, callibration, and other issues. But at least it makes the formerly impossible now somewhat possible.

So if the Wiimote seemed to track motion "pretty well" before, you can bet that (1) you weren't paying that close attention, or (2) the actual motion being tracked was very limited, and (2) the programmers were struggling with the limits from the little data they had available.

With the data from the new sensor, it will be interesting to see what kind of new gameplay comes up. Obviously you can do things like a realistic tennis simulation, where it now matters exactly how hard you swing and at what angle you hold the racket. But I'm hoping to see even more innovative things that we haven't even imagined yet.

[Ryan @ Jul 16th 2008 5:56PM]

Remember Baseball in Wii Sports? How when batting you can move the bat around, and it's almost 1:1?

Yeah, the swordfighting doesn't look much different from that.

[Jonathan @ Jul 16th 2008 6:08PM]

@Ryan

Yeah, because judging an entire peripheral with a blasé review that's based entirely off of "Wii Sports" is a great idea.

It's clear the Wiimote alone has a pretty rudimentary sensor. Turn it around too far in Mario Kart Wii and the game will think you're steering the other way.

It's pretty simple to realize that getting twice the data, and from opposite ends of the Wiimote is going to give you more precise positioning, tracking, orientation, rotation, etc, as opposed to what the Wiimote does now.... which is called "guessing".

@Hold

I'm not sure I've ever played a game where the sword can actually get stuck on things, but if it's a true 1:1 experience aren't you going to be able to tell when you should stop swinging? :)

Besides, I'm pretty sure the Wii is too slow to be able to compute collision detection without, you know, looking like you're playing N64. *oh snap*

[Jonathan @ Jul 16th 2008 6:12PM]

@ myself

My first comment is to RYAN BLOCK, not the Ryan above me. Sorry Ryan above me.

[Joseph @ Jul 16th 2008 6:26PM]

@Podaman

There is a port for the nunchuck. It was being used with a nunchuck at the press conference.

[AJ in the East Bay @ Jul 16th 2008 6:58PM]

@Podaman:

Like Joseph says, the MotionPlus has a pass-through port on the bottom for the nunchuk. You can see the port cover on one of the pictures in Engadget's post.

[error2k2 @ Jul 16th 2008 7:23PM]

@Ryan
You are so damn clueless it's amazing. Do you realise that the Wii doesn't know when you're holding the wiimote on the left side of your body, or the right, above or below?.

Hold the wiimote level, slowly turn it left and the Wii doesn't know your doing it. Unless you tilt it, the wii is clueless. It's all different now.

[SKI @ Jul 17th 2008 11:37AM]

"One thing does concern me though. That thing plugs into the nunchuck port, and I don't see another plug on it for the nunchuck. If they don't announce a wireless nunchuck, then that means you won't be able to use this new addon and the nunchuck at the same time. And that means that while this addon would allow you to swing a sword much more accurately, you won't have the ability to move around as easily as you could in Zelda with the stick."

You can attach the nunchuck, that's how Reggie played the jetski game.

[SKI @ Jul 17th 2008 11:49AM]

I think the drift would be solved with usual pointing at the center of the screen (like at the show) .

[Rob @ Jul 17th 2008 10:36PM]

@Hold: Make the controller rumble when it hits. If you stop moving the sword in response, you parry and can bring it back for another blow. If you keep moving it forward, your opponent slips past your defense and slashes you.

[Tina Darby @ Jul 16th 2008 4:35PM]

Unfortunately, many a people will fall for this and buy it.... regardless of the accessory's pointlessness

[Ihar `Philips` Filipau @ Jul 16th 2008 4:37PM]

You should have said "Unless StarWars will not support it - it's useless."

That's the way it is. From all it looks, N responded to request to implement proper light saber ;)

[Brian! @ Jul 16th 2008 4:38PM]

Ugh, you just called me out. I went and put in my order and I don't even own a Wii... the shame.

But it is so true.

[Tony C @ Jul 16th 2008 5:15PM]

So is this incremental controller upgrade $30 or $15 like "G" reported? Huge difference, but overpriced either way. :op

[Abuzar Baloach @ Jul 16th 2008 6:41PM]

It's not really pointless. It should make the Wiimote much more accurate. See the posts above you.

[Alex Padilla @ Jul 16th 2008 4:35PM]

On that note, why not refine the control scheme and sensitivity on the Wiimote? Sure, I like the idea of MotionPlus (true motion sensitivity), but if this is something that can be done using software updates, then I agree, this is a ripoff.

However, MotionPlus probably tightens up control by adding that extra sensor to be more dimensionally precise. If this is probably the case, then the $30 is justified. And who knows, maybe this Wii Sports Resort game just really sucks?

[Cornelius @ Jul 16th 2008 4:44PM]

The Wiimote only has linear accelerometers and one optical sensor, which is good enough for detecting simple linear movements, but not angular movements. Hence, no game has properly implemented swordplay on the the Wii.

I would assume that the MotionPlus has a tuning fork gyroscope built-in to handle this.

[Mr. Fax Sender @ Jul 16th 2008 4:36PM]

It just adds more weight to your Wii so there's a higher chance the wrist strap will break and it'll shatter your 2000 dollar TV.

[Mr. Fax Sender @ Jul 16th 2008 4:36PM]

Wiimote*, that is.

[ZombieLeftovers @ Jul 17th 2008 10:20AM]

Yo Batman, wazzup? How's your paren.... Uhm.. bye!

[Mark @ Jul 16th 2008 4:37PM]

Yay, now we can get our wiimote condoms in magnum size!

[broli @ Jul 16th 2008 4:40PM]

I bet if you open it up you'll find some rocks in it.

[ZombieLeftovers @ Jul 17th 2008 7:34AM]

You mean like crack..? Damn. Then this moiton+ just has to work!

[Dan @ Jul 16th 2008 4:41PM]

It's got a more accurate reading on what's going on with the WiiMote... my guess is that when you would flick the WiiMote now, it registers as a movement and swings your tennis racket (for example). Now, the MotionPlus requires the full movement for the swing to register; having the user do an actual swing. The reason our reviewers didn't notice the difference is probably because they already play the Wii like you're supposed to, and that is, not flicking the remote to accomplish a full swing.

[Ryan @ Jul 16th 2008 7:03PM]

Dan,

I agree with you. I think this will make the lazy couch bowlers actually get off the couch and actually move more then their wrists to score 300.

[mdelprin @ Jul 18th 2008 6:18AM]

Just another way to try and charge me for Wii Jackets.

[Phoenix @ Jul 18th 2008 3:48PM]

*rolls eyes*

the jackets are included

[master_sword @ Jul 16th 2008 4:42PM]

well thats a not encouraging

[Matt B @ Jul 16th 2008 5:07PM]

Bigger is better, right?

[Brandon @ Jul 16th 2008 4:43PM]

the current wiimote doesnt trasmit the twisting motion if u hold the controller on the same y and x axis while twisting. the motionplus accessory will allow for this detection.

[Eric Van Boven @ Jul 16th 2008 4:43PM]

This kind of crap is what is making me hate my wii. So many addons that you need to purchase just to use a game. The wii seemed such low price but now compared to other consoles its a rip off specially after purchasing 3 other remotes and ninchucks. Now they expect 4 wii motion sensors to play one game?? Lets release a device that will make the wii remote do what it should have been able to do already. Nintendo is making a fortune for only 3-4 games that people actually play. Which all suck for online with 4 players. Why cant you play with all 4 people from a wii online with mario kart or supersmash???? Im giving up on the wii and it needs a price cut and dvd playback or im gonna start using it as a paper weight. And accesories need to be cut in price by half.

[Miguel @ Jul 16th 2008 4:47PM]

Yeah I agree. With all the accessories and add-ons people buy for the Wii the price starts getting close to the cost of the 360 and PS3.

[Hooterman @ Jul 16th 2008 5:20PM]

Quit your bitching. You have to buy extra controllers for all the other systems too. You're not saving any money by buying one of them over a Wii.

"Im giving up on the wii and it needs a price cut and dvd playback or im gonna start using it as a paper weight."

So if they don't cut the retail price on the Wii you're going to stop using yours? How does that make any sense at all? And why are people so bent out of shape that the Wii doesn't play DVD movies? Most people (especially gamers) already have multiple boxes hooked up to their TV that will play DVD's. Including, *GASP*, a DVD player! Why on earth would you feel the need to cry for another?