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Why did Nintendo even bother releasing Wii Motion Plus?

G

GitarooMan

Member
I'm a little baffled as to why Nintendo would develop and release a peripheral and here we are over a year later and they have not released anything other than Wii Sports Resort (I think that's it, please correct if I'm wrong). Third party support for it has been sporadic to be kind. I just think it's very strange to release such a product(and now pack it in) and basically ignore it.

Do you think this was their plan or are other projects just slower in the pipeline than they hoped?
 
GitarooMan said:
Do you think this was their plan or are other projects just slower in the pipeline than they hoped?
Click to expand...

Nintendo released Motion Plus because they wanted to sell Wii Sports Resort.

Since then, WSR has sold very well; Nintendo's goals have been met; the Motion Plus device has been a success.
 
gerg said:
Nintendo released Motion Plus because they wanted to sell Wii Sports Resort.

Since then, WSR has sold very well; Nintendo's goals have been met; the Motion Plus device has been a success.
Click to expand...
I suspect WSR could have sold just as well without Motion Plus, but who knows maybe that was it, it certainly seems like it may have been.

There's that Zelda game too.
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Yup, true, we'll be seeing another game ~2 years after the release of the device.
 
I just realized the Skyward Sword will cost me 90€, unless of course I also buy Wii Sports Resort which I am not interested in. Huh.
 
I was going to post the entire list of supported games from Wikipedia, but it has shovelware in it, so instead I'll just post a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_MotionPlus#Supported_games
Red Steel 2 was fun. But yeah, I think Nintendo released it expecting more support than it actually got. They probably don't mind though, as they seem perfectly happy to release capability-enhancing devices for only a few games.

Edit: Checking the iTunes store, there are already more games (or apps, at least) that support the iPhone 4's gyroscope than there are games that support Wii MotionPlus. :lol
 
Second said:
Not in the context of this thread.
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25x9lbq
 
Why did Nintendo release Wii Speak, the Wii Zapper, the Wii Wheel, the Wii Balance Board, the Classic Controller Pro?

Answer: To sell you a peripheral that is necessary to one or more essential games.
 
cooljeanius said:
I was going to post the entire list of supported games from Wikipedia, but it has shovelware in it, so instead I'll just post a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_MotionPlus#Supported_games
Red Steel 2 was fun. But yeah, I think Nintendo released it expecting more support than it actually got. They probably don't mind though, as they seem perfectly happy to release capability-enhancing devices for only a few games.
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I know the list of games, I just think it's sort of fascinating that Nintendo has only made one (at least in the US)
 
I suppose they were hoping that 3rd parties would make more of a contribution. I can only guess that the reason why they didn't is that Wii consumers don't actually know what WM+ does, or don't care.

The question associated with this point is how successful would WM+ have been without WiiSports Resort tied to it? Would consumers have bought the peripheral on its own? Probably not.
 
They seem to do this a lot. Another accessory that suffered a similar fate to this is Wii speak. A handful of games supported it and even with some of them it didn't work very well.

Edit: Yayyy, no longer junior :)
 
Second said:
Not in the context of this thread.
Click to expand...

The success of a product should be considered against the goals of its manufacturer. The "context of this thread" is irrelevant.

GitarooMan said:
I suspect WSR could have sold just as well without Motion Plus, but who knows maybe that was it, it certainly seems like it may have been.
Click to expand...

I don't think so.

In any case, Nintendo only ever releases hardware in order to push (its own) software. I doubt they really considered strong third-party support when deciding to manufacture the Motion Plus device.
 
It is disappointing. It has a lot of potential, as seen in some of the better games in Sports Resort like the sword fighting but there is no other game than Red Steel 2 that uses it and appeals to me. And I found RS2 kind of dull too which is a bummer.

...but Skyward Sword will be enough to make it worthwhile for me. It was bundled with my Wii so it's not like I wasted my money or anything, it just sits next to my Wii collecting dust. *


*My Wii doesn't collect dust. Well, actually it does since it's a black Wii.
 
Technically that applies to every peripheral/add-on.
EyeToy, Live Camera, Chatpad, N64 Expansion Pak, WiiSpeak, PSEye, why did they released those?

As with many things, the aim is not to have everyone own one, but to create the need of some to have it. No matter if it's actually tied to an actual need for it, or just because.

That in some cases it helps to sell the product or make it better is a coincidence more than an actual need. You technically don't need Motion Plus, developers don't need to create games for it; but is there. And if they make something that uses it,people will need to have one.
 
Because throwing in a peripheral with a bigger box SELL GAMES.
To casual gamers, a game that comes a plastic wheel, a plastic gun cradle, a motion plus... looks like a bargain compare to just a disc.

For Wii Sports Resort, it really did add to the gameplay. But the most important factor is that it's just a way of marketing.
 
McLovin said:
Why did they bother? They got a bunch of people to buy it. It doesn't matter that its barely getting support.
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Plus every Wii sold out there has been including one for quuite a few months, plus the millions they already sold before.
 
It's easy to say it's stupid and a failure due to the small number of games BUT, you have to consider the way they do these things. Nintendo develops hardware to support their software. They made the Wii Wheel for Mario Kart. They made the Zapper for Link's Crossbow Training. They made the Balance Board for Wii Fit. They made the MotionPlus for Wii Sports Resort. It's actually the first Wii perhipheral to get more than one Big Name Game internally-developed for it.

They don't make them to usher in a new wonderland of games that use it, they make them for the specific games they made them for. They needed specific hardware to realize an idea, so they made it, packed it in with the game, and that's the end of it. If third parties want to make games that use them as well, well hey great. But that's just a bonus.
 
I got my motion+ adapter with the Tiger Woods game, and I bought Red Steel 2 so I would have a second controller and Red Steel 2.

...of course, I don't have Wii Sports Resort and I haven't even opened Red Steel 2 since getting it like months ago. :lol
 
I tell ya, I agree Wii Motion Plus needs to be implemented better.

But the games with it are pretty fantastic. It's a shame it isn't implemented into more games.
 
cosmicblizzard said:
Will Skyward Sword be the highest profile game ever to require a peripheral?
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I guess as a Wii release it's automatically higher profile than an N64 release, but within the same series Majora's Mask needed a peripheral.

Though hell, even considering the same peripheral, a sequel to Wii Sports might have the higher profile.
 
It always seemed like nothing more than a bullet point feature to make the Wii motion technology seem up to speed with the competitor's upcoming motion tech.
 
It makes the Wii-remote almost as accurate as we thought it would be, when the console was first released.

I had a good time with Red Steel 2 and Wii Sports Resort. I also got Tiger 10, but I wasn't too impressed with it's implementation there.
 
Woffls said:
I suppose they were hoping that 3rd parties would make more of a contribution. I can only guess that the reason why they didn't is that Wii consumers don't actually know what WM+ does, or don't care.

The question associated with this point is how successful would WM+ have been without WiiSports Resort tied to it? Would consumers have bought the peripheral on its own? Probably not.
Click to expand...

Well of course not, that's the same for any peripheral. Why would anyone buy a device with absolutely no use?
 
gerg said:
Since then, WSR has sold very well; Nintendo's goals have been met; the Motion Plus device has been a success.
Click to expand...

Success here being defined by a peripheral that is used in a handful of games and then completely forgotten about even though it's clearly what the wiimote should have been from day one

i mean, clearly Nintendo's goal was to have no developers (including themselves) ever even talk about it beyond that initial handful of games. And yay for Zelda forever after the thing released!

The game was a success (and would have been without Motion+). The peripheral is not... yet. And I doubt it will ever be because it's too late into the Wii's life to adopt such add-on peripherals as some central piece of controlling games.

Wii 2 will have that functionality from the start no doubt and we won't have this conversation.
 
Two reasons that I can see. They wanted to release a sequel to Wii Sports and wanted new hardware to push it. They knew this would sell alot, and it did. The other reason is that they knew Sony and Microsoft were probably working on Motion devices that would be considerably more accurate then the original Wiimote so they wanted to somewhat even out the playing field before that happened. I dont think third parties were much of a consideration at all in releasing it.
 
Wii Sports Resort, Tiger Woods, those tennis games, Red Steel 2, Zelda. Also it's in every Wii package being sold from now on.

It's a silly question. Motion Plus exists for the same reason that any piece of Nintendo hardware exists - somebody at Nintendo had some game ideas they wanted to use it for.
 
Perhaps they knew about the Move, long before anyone else, and decided it would be a good preemptive move on their part.
 
teruterubozu said:
SMG2 should have supported it. They clearly don't give a shit.
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There's really nothing in the game that could have benefited from the addition of MotionPlus. And considering the game was damn near perfection as is, you're going to have to come with up with a better example to prove your non-existent point.
 
ShockingAlberto said:
Because Nintendo's a business and they realized that selling 7 million of a game is way, way better than selling 0 million of nothing.
Click to expand...

Ahem. "...of something that's priced above its expense." That's a shockingly necessary addition for console makers these days.
 
ShockingAlberto said:
Because Nintendo's a business and they realized that selling 7 million of a game is way, way better than selling 0 million of nothing.
Click to expand...
False dichotomy because WSR could have been made without it in theory.

I get the "$$$$" and the "Nintendo makes hardware when it needs it for a specific game" theories, I just really wonder if Nintendo was really thinking when conceiving this peripheral that "hey we'll release WSR, get people to buy another 1-3 motion plus units to play multi, get a few token third party games, and release Zelda in two years." Who knows, maybe they thought Zelda would come around a little quicker 18 months ago when they started laying out the timeline.

Oh, and the Zapper is a bad comparison as Nintendo released several games to support that.
 
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