Nintendo turned Times Square into a resort to celebrate the launch of Wii Sports Resort today. Nintendo of America’s product marketing manager Bill Trinen was asked about the role of the MotionPlus in Nintendo’s strategy, specifically whether or not developers of new games will ever be forced to use the peripheral. His response was pretty much what you would expect.
I don’t think that we would or that we would necessarily require other developers to do so either. Something like Wii MotionPlus and whether or not you want to incorporate that is more of a creative decision that’s up to each individual developer. I think it certainly suits specific types of games, but it may not make sense to include Wii MotionPlus in every game. For example, if you look at the motion controls of New Super Mario Bros. for Wii that’s coming out this holiday, it’s not the kind of control that requires or would really benefit from more precise movements. So it doesn’t make sense for a development team to spend time implementing something that’s going to enhance the end experience. I do think over time, we’re going to see a lot of developers taking a look at it and finding things they can do that they couldn’t do with the standard Wii Remote and we’re going to see those experiences come to life.
That certainly makes sense. Trinen was also asked about the possibility of a Wii Remote with a MotionPlus built right in. He simply said that they’ve been thinking about it, but they want to focus on getting the MotionPlus itself out there before deciding anything like that.
