Future Wiimotes Will Probably Feature MotionPlus

It was a weird year for Nintendo at E3. Their game line-up was very much oriented towards the casual gamer, with titles like Animal Crossing: City Folk and Wii Music taking center stage and leaving the more hardcore gamer somewhat disappointed. For this category the most interesting announcement made by Nintendo might just have been the fact that the Wiimote was getting MotionPlus, an add-on which significantly improves the motion tracking element of the controller.

Now one of the people working for Nintendo is saying that the future versions of Wiimotes that are bundled with the Nintendo Wii console might have the MotionPlus component integrated, offering the user a superior gaming experience out of the box. Eguchi stated that "As to looking at whether or not it will be an attachment or built in - we're always looking at how hardware should evolve and where we should take it" before adding that "Unfortunately I don't have a definite direction to give you today, but it's something we'll be looking at."

Nintendo earlier revealed that its upcoming Wii Sports Resort, which adds new games and mini-games in the Wii Sports mold, will be bundled with a MotionPlus add-on, because the title will make use of its new capabilities. It's unknown how future Wii games will deal with the issue regarding some Wiimotes having MotionPlus while other ones being a standard variety. A scenario can be imagined where Nintendo might even require Wii users to upgrade to be able to play some of the newer games. For example, it is still unclear what will happen when trying to play the upcoming Wii Sports Resort with a Wiimote that does not have MotionPlus.

It's likely that Nintendo will announce its plans regarding the Wiimote in the coming months.