Nintendo: Devs knew about Wii MotionPlus, more storage coming

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Sunday, 27 July 2008 19:41

Opinion and Analysis

One of the big criticisms of Nintendo’s E3 announcement of the Wii MotionPlus add-on for more accurate motion control is that it kept the announcement to itself, leaving developers to learn about it through E3 – but it turns out that’s not quite the truth. An added storage option for the Wii is also being worked on!

Picture this: you’re a developer hard at work on creating new titles for the Nintendo Wii, when all of a sudden, Nintendo launches a new add-on for the Wiimote that dramatically improves its motion accuracy – and now you have to reprogram your game before launching.

Well, that’s how some developers said they felt, according to GameInformer, many of whom said they’d had no prior knowledge that the new accessory was coming. It didn’t impress iTWire’s gaming expert, Mike Bantick, either, who quoted GameInformer in an article on the topic last week.

But according to MTV Multiplayer, who spoke to Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime, developers did get early warning – or at least, some developers did.

In a longer interview, MTV Multiplayer says to Fils-Aime “But third parties were learning about it when we learned about it”, to which Fils-Aime responded: “They learned about it a little earlier.”

One of the complaints from developers that GameInformer spoke to was that users wouldn’t see any games take advantage of the Wii MotionPlus accessory for 6-9 months.

At face value, it seems outrageous that gamers will have to wait that long to try out the Wii MotionPlus, if they are going to buy it, and then games that take advantage of it.

But the big problem for complaining third party developers, many of whom are accused of turning out poor Wii games anyway, is that Nintendo itself won’t have the Wii MotionPlus on sale for at least 6-9 months anyway.

New questions arise, right? They sure do – please read on to page 2.