Hey, you know what would be awesome? If you could actually use the
MotionPlus dongle you're going to pick up
on June 8th. You see, there's a 1.5 month gap between the US release date of the add-on and the first first-party title (
Wii Sports Resort) designed to take advantage of it. 'Course, we fully expect a few third-party games (EA's
Grand Slam Tennis, for one) to filter out beforehand, but what we were really hoping was for the Big N to provide patches for a few existing titles. Sadly, Mario has chimed in from the Mushroom Kingdom with this: "The Wii MotionPlus accessory is only for games that are designed to make use of its abilities." Translation? You can forget about seeing MotionPlus support added to
Mario Kart Wii... or
Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal, for that matter.
[Via
Joystiq]
posted Apr 15th 2009 12:48PM
so nintendo wants me to pay for something that I can't use after I get home from the store with it?
Similarly to re-releasing GameCube games titles for Wii, I imagine Nintendo are planning to "update" Wii Sports etc to 'Motion Plus' titles as re-releases rather than for free download patches.
PERHAPS THE SAME SENTIMENT CAN BE APPLIED TO THE WII ITSELF
Wii simply couldn't do that.
it's in the system architecture. in a nutshell, every Wii update is not exactly the kind of update which overwrites order codes, it is known to co-exist with (all) older versions of system codes. plus, every single game calls only one certain version/set of system codes.
(which means that, Zelda and Mario Kart are using different version/set of system codes.)
there is a good chance that older system codes don't have the API of MotionPlus, and that is exactly why older games (which use older codes) is not possible to support MotionPlus.
unless, of course, the game company (of the old game) could update the codes in the game disk (so that to support some new APIs) and release a updated disk of the same game. haha~
It seems to me this is just another add-on that we will buy to bring home and put in a drawer. There has not been a lot of excitement shown for it nor development geared towards it, and now we know past titles get no benefit. To me it sounds like something to pass on.
I hope it goes the way of the Atari with dumptrucks full of F- grade shovelware.
They're releasing it this early because of EA. They want it out there so you can use it with Grand Slam Tennis and Tiger Woods 10, which come out a week later. I'm hoping that some retailers will offer a deal for buying them together.
"matt @ Apr 15th 2009 12:53PM
so nintendo wants me to pay for something that I can't use after I get home from the store with it?"
Sensible people would choose to just hold off on buying it if they had no games to use it with.
This should be an standard built in upgrade to the already buggy/inaccurate wii mote... this whole thing is really beginning to suck ass. I am really beginning to get pissed off with Nintendo sucking every little penny out of its buyers, any other console manufacturer would simply bring out a new, updated controller, not Nintendo, they get new buyers and old buyers, all have to buy an addon to get the original controller to do something it should do accurately already.
One of my biggest gripes with the Wii is how inaccurate it's Wii-mote is. Following that, a lack of media support and what I consider to be poor graphics leave it as a rather uninteresting console.
I find it amazing how popular they seem to be, yet everyone I know who has one rarely plays it. Where is all this excitement coming from, and why?
In the Wii's entire lifetime, the only games I've ever been excited for were Zelda: Twilight Princess, a never-released "Day After Tomorrow"-esque title (apparently cancelled), and MadWord. I got Z:TP for GameCube, which leaves me interested in a single game after all this time.. and even that interest wanes when considering that I'll be controlling it using a rather clumsy, inaccurate Wiimote.
Hopefully this attachment goes a long way to improving things for the Wii. I could set aside my lesser degradations if the accuracy of the Wiimote was improved. I'm just not sure that this is going to do the job.
"One of my biggest gripes with the Wii is how inaccurate it's Wii-mote is." So true! Playing Resident Evil 4 on the Wii was so frustrating I vowed never to purchase a FPS for it again.
And since the MotionPlus will not be backwards compatible I will not be buying it either. More money for the 360, which gets played everyday!
From my experience, the Wii has done so well based on how many people who aren't four hour a night gamers are buying it. If playing an hour or two a week falls into your category of "rarely", then yes, you're right, but that's exactly why it's successful.
Interesting that you are having Wii remote issues.
My Wii remotes are extremely accurate whether it is via pointer (pin-point accuracy) or motion gestures.
Enjoy the six titles this thing will be good for because by creating this as an add-on, Nintendo has basically segmented those who buy it and publishers would rather go after the majority of Wii owners rather than the slim, segmented market of users who end up buying this.
This device will amount to a speed bump. They should give it away with their next version of Zelda or Mario. They would have better market penetration as a pack in. And start shipping newer systems with it.
that's too bad. i wonder if softwares/game titles can be updated for this purpose of upgrading the Wiimotes.
Mario Kart Wii is a great game, and tbh, i'm not sure that MotionPlus would add any improvements to this game anyhow. Others, say Wii Sports for sure, but that's what Wii Sports Resort is for.
1. the wiimote should be rechargeable out the box like the other consoles.
2. this motion plus should have been part of the original design
3. no reason to have the wiimote and nun chuck wired together. the inevitable wireless nun chuck again should have been on day one.
Rechargable like the XBOX 360 that I keep having to put batteries into?
I don't mind the wired nun chuck, but Give me a wireless classic controller.
If that were the case for the first two, we'd be paying $60-$70 for new Wii-motes. A wireless (and I'm guessing you're going to demand it be rechargeable, too) 1st party nun-chuck would be in the $30-$40 range.
Enough with the blind wii hate, guys. There's enough decent games for his system to justify its existence and as tech folks none of you should be shocked by a tech company releasing new tech that doesn't jive with old software. Either it will take off or it won't as dictated by market consumption.
@squall
No, rechargeable like my ps3 controllers. I was unaware the 360 does the batteries.
@amish
Price is not an issue when it comes to quality.
I love my wii. just wish all these "enhancements" were out the box.
The 360 can use either regular batteries or the rechargable packs. I haven't had to replace my rechargable 360 battery packs, so where does that come from?
All my Wii remotes have rechargeable batteries. They are cheap and charge in an hour.
Why patch old games when they can just try to sell you refreshed versions of the old ones with this new functionality.
I'm surprised they didn't just make a whole new WiiMote (the WiiMote2) with this built into it. People will buy the add on for their existing controllers, and then buy the WM2 when they throw their existing one into a wall.
Does anyone else think controller prices are just ridiculous these days? WiiMote = $45 + Nunchuk = $25 + MotionPlus = $25 = $95 for a controller!!
(Canadian Dollar prices, rough guess for MP cost)
Not saying it's cheap, but those are all inflated prices. Right now, on Amazon, here's the cost (shipping is free):
Wiimote: $35.96
Nunchuck: $17.96
Motion Plus: $19.99 (pre-order)
Total: $73.91
Oops, ignore my last comment...I missed you were pricing in Canadian dollars (though Amazon is still slightly cheaper even then). Also, just because you get 3 or 4 wiimotes doesn't mean you need the nunchuk and motion plus for all of them since the 3 and 4 player games usually don't use them.
From what I've read elsewhere and from my own experiences with the Wii, I don't think Nintendo can even patch Wii games period. Apparently the system isn't set up to do that.
THE WORD IS OPT not APT
Apt is correct.
The only thing more annoying than a grammar police is a grammar police with bad grammar.
Can I apt-out of RattyUK's comments?
it's not that they won't add new features to old titles, it's that they can't
wii was never designed with that functionality in mind.
I hope Nintendo isn't expecting a lot from this. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to release this when it can't be used for so long. Outside of a few people that aren't going to understand this won't have an immediate impact, I don't see this flying off the shelves.
That's lame. BoomBlox desperately needs it.
No surprise on a lack of backwards support on existing titles. The amount of additional sales on older titles I don't believe would justify it...of course everyone would like to see wii sports and others updated.
Personally I think that you'll basically be forced by third party developers to pick one of these up if you want to play new games in specifiy genres. Most games could benefit from addition resolution and many almost demand it. If anything, I'm hoping that this will help to add compelling gameplay to non-party type games: better boxing, tennis, golf.......light saber.
What will be interesting is if Nintento creates a new Wiimote with this built in and if that gets included in the base system or not.
No surprise. It's impossible for Nintendo to update their previous games anyway. The Wii has no operating system, only if the games were updated to support this and re-released would this be possible.
*fap*
*fap*
*fap*
This is Nintendo's biggest shortcoming. They have no real long-term vision or game plan when they launch a system. Instead things are tacked onto later like some sort of Frankenstein monster. This not only ruins the appearance of a console, but as was pointed out earlier, not everyone will buy these add-ons which fragments the market and results in the add-on not being used to the extent it could have been if it was there from the start.
And to release such an add-on with no title that can actually USE it is even dumber. Why bother? I suspect a release date change is in the cards because that doesn't make any sense at all.
Lets hope they learn from this and design their next home console machine properly for internet connectivity.
Wii need WarioWare: Motion+
Yes!
I would also like a WarioWare that uses the Balance Board too.
FFFFFFUUUUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKKK YYYYYOOOOOOOUUUUUUU.
this product is a POS anyways. It's the Wii, i don think anyone is really going to care how accurate the wii remote is.
Why so butthurt?
How would you even expect that to work? Do you think some developer is going to go into an old game and completely reprogram the control code to support another motion sensor?
This isn't like adding Steering Wheel support to an older racing game, this is a completely new input method that would seriously change the way a game is played. It would require going back to the drawing board for the way a game was designed, and full on development / testing / play balancing. It's similar to those GameCube ports of Pikmin and Mario Tennis, they aren't simple patches applied to the old games, they're complete rewrites that totally change the way you play the games.
Sometimes I wonder why the engadget bloggers aren't over at these big companies' idea centers.
Isnt the motion plus just another accl. and gryo? I use Glovepie for my wiimote and have seen the extra inputs for it.
You realize that due to the way the wii is set up, there's no possible way to actually patch games after release, right?
Yes, marcan covered this here:
http://hackmii.com/2009/02/why-the-wii-will-never-get-any-better/
the dumbest idea to come out from nintendo are the friend codes. they are different for each game! who thought that was a great idea? that person needs to be put on display in the center of town and ridiculed while people throw pineapples at him.
Its apparent that most folk here didn't take the time to do any research on the MotionPlus accessory. The accessory is not mandatory for any of the announced games (not sure about Wii Resort). So no it would not segment the market at all as a regular wiimote would do. It serves to enhance the gaming experience. Yes it would've been nice if this were available from the get go, but I suspect technical/costs issues prevented taht.
For you people knocking on the Wii for its lack of graphical horsepower. You really need to realise that you "hardcore" gamers aren't the only game in town. Incidentally, developers earn significant revenue on games like Bejeweled and the like. Not exactly graphical powerhouse. Yes I own a Wii and a 360. I have just packed away the 360 to focus on some Wii gaming. No I'm not a granny or what you trolls claim through your sheer brilliance is the Wii demographic. A good game is a good game regardless of the visuals.
Not adding to older titles is probably true, but the notion that there will be no games for it at release is wrong. One game will already have been released (Sega's Virtua Tennis 2009) and 2 more will be coming out soon after. Obviously you don't buy the MotionPlus add-on if you don't have a game that will use it. Maybe "hardcore" gamers do stupid things like buy something they can't use, but the rest of the gamers are quite a bit smarter.