Nintendo's New Wii "MotionPlus" Sensor

Before the Wii's release, I was psyched to experience its capabilities. Nintendo claimed that we would finally be immersed in our games, using real-life movements to accomplish in-game tasks. It's a sort of "Holy Grail" of gaming, leading to a deeper level of involvement, rather than simple button pushing.

Yet I was skeptical from the start. Being slightly more technically inclined than the general population, I realized what kind of technology it would take for Nintendo to accomplish this task, and at the price point they were selling the Wii for, I knew the experience wasn't going to be everything Nintendo was hyping it up to be.

Once I tried the Wii, I realized that this skepticism was well-founded. Sure, the little "Mii" swung his arm back to take a swing in Wii Bowling in some sort of approximation of what I was doing with my actual arm, but it was never the true "be the character" experience that everyone was hoping for.

Nintendo realized this, and I suppose this is what they've been working on for the past two years while their system was enjoying its continued popularity, despite its shortcomings. The MotionPlus sensor claims to provide the true 1:1 movement experience that Nintendo was shooting for from the start. I haven't tried the new add-on piece yet, but there was a hands on article over at Gizmodo today that made me think about all of this.

To me, this is kind of a band-aid solution from Nintendo, and a bit of an admission that the original Wii-Mote wasn't the be-all, end-all game controller that they claimed it to be. I'm anxious to try this new add-on, but in reality, shouldn't this have been included in the original hardware? Perhaps the Wii would've been a better overall product if they had delayed its launch a couple more years to improve the hardware.