Wii Motion

[Devia Eleven]

July 14, 2008 - Players wondering if we'd ever see a true 1:1 experience on Wii need to wonder no more, as Nintendo announced today a new plug-in peripheral for the Wii remote, currently called Wii MotionPlus. Details are sparse so far, but Nintendo revealed the first snippets of information in a press release this morning. The following statement is -- in its entirety -- Nintendo's announcement of MotionPlus for Wii:

 

Nintendo's upcoming Wii MotionPlus accessory for the revolutionary Wii Remote controller again redefines game control, by more quickly and accurately reflecting motions in a 3-D space. The Wii MotionPlus accessory attaches to the end of the Wii Remote and, combined with the accelerometer and the sensor bar, allows for more comprehensive tracking of a player's arm position and orientation, providing players with an unmatched level of precision and immersion. Every slight movement players make with their wrist or arm is rendered identically in real time on the screen, providing a true 1:1 response in their game play. The Wii MotionPlus accessory reconfirms Nintendo's commitment to making games intuitive and accessible for everyone. Nintendo will reveal more details about the Wii MotionPlus accessory and other topics Tuesday morning at its E3 media briefing.

 

 

 

What we don't know, however, is how exactly MotionPlus will work with nunchuk controls, as the peripheral would need some sort of pass-through in order to give 1:1 motion to titles requiring analog control. The first shot above shows a small plug in the bottom of the attachment, which looks to be covering just such port, but we'll wait on Nintendo to give the final confirmation. Will we see first-person shooters that can make use of this technology? Will LucasArts find a way to adapt the upcoming Clone Wars game to include true 1:1 lightsaber technology, or could Nintendo beat them to it with a pack-in Link's Sword Fighting game (or news of a new Zelda Wii) to showcase MotionPlus? Will some sort of future "Wii-mote 2.0" automatically include MotionPlus, removing the need for an additional add-on peripheral? We'll have to wait and see how exactly the new technology works, and all signs point to Nintendo's keynote just 24 hours from now.

 

Source: IGN Article

[Lucandrake]

....if you need a peripheral just to make the Wii mote work better you just fuked up, this sh!t better be free.

[basilbr]

I actually saw a demo of a similar tech (to give a better orientation of the wiimote) awhile ago on youtube, it had something to do with the alignment of the accelerometers (it also gave a good explanation of why the IR bar is needed), so that with additional IR positions the guy was able to do a decent example of a mock lightsabre.

(it's quite long)

Although I agree that really those extra gyro's should have been in the wiimote from the start, it's hard to judge based on not knowing how long the Wii-mote was in development (also in the youtube vid the guy mention that such tech was expensive as well).

Edited July 18, 2008 by basilbr