Nintendo Wants a Real Football on the Wii

It all began with the Wiimote and the Nunchuk, the two controllers that allow the Wii to work its motion-tracking magic and attract towards videogames people who might otherwise be totally put off by the complexity of a PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 standard controller. But Nintendo did not stop there.

Wii Fit is partly so successful because of the way it uses the Balance Board, and now, big publishers like Activision are sprinting to pack as many videogames with a specialized controller as possible. With the PS3 wand and with the Project Natal for the Xbox 360 set to debut next year, Nintendo is rumored to be testing ideas regarding its next big motion tracking controller.

One of the more interesting ideas is that newly discovered by Siliconera football peripheral. The trademark was filled in February and is officially named “Method and apparatus for simulating games involving a ball.” It's all about inserting the Wiimote and maybe the Nunchuk into a football made of “sponge, foam, or plastic material.”

This new peripheral can then be strapped to the hand of the player as they go through the motions associated with American football games, like Madden. The hand that is not used for throwing can be used for pressing buttons to determinate plays and select other actions.

With EA Sports re-designing Madden in order to reach a wider audience on the Nintendo Wii this year, it would be no surprise if, next year, the game came pre-packed with a football courtesy of Nintendo.

The patent comes after Nintendo announced a Vitality Sensor add on, which, at the moment, has no clear applications, and after revelations about a horse back riding peripheral surfaced. Not to be outdone, Sony has filled a patent related to a device that would be used to track the emotions that players experience.