My initial reaction to the introduction of the Wii MotionPlus at last year's E3 was, well, a bit blunt. I believe my exact words were "And the original Wiimote doesn't do this because why?" Of course, the staff patted me on the head to calm me down, and I forgot about it, but even when I think about it now, it seems odd -- why does the device offer more movement when the Wiimote is all about movement in the first place? Shouldn't Nintendo have thought of this?
Masaya Matsuura, the creator of the Parappa the Rappa games and the upcoming Major Minor's Majestic March, was recently interviewed by MTV Multiplayer and the topic came up. Here's what hehad to say in regards to MotionPlus:
"We tried to adapt “Major Minor” to MotionPlus, but doing so didn’t really make it any more fun than it already was. Maybe MotionPlus titles need to be planned as such from the beginning. The basic structure of “Major Minor” was pretty much determined before MotionPlus arrived, so there wasn’t a huge advantage to adapting it to MotionPlus. And what’s more, the controller would become bigger, so we gave up on the idea."
I can't help but wonder if this is an issue many developers will run into when trying to interpret MotionPlus use into their games. After all, who wants a bigger controller? Are you interested in trying MotionPlus out, or feel like you can do just fine without it?
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Contest:
11:20 AM on 03.20.2009
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My opinion, based on no factual evidence, is that they wanted to get the Wii out the door by a certain time, and they hadn't developed the Wiimote up to the Wiimotion Plus level of sophistication yet. As it is, the tech in the Wiimotes was, for the time, pretty good. But look at the iPhone/iPod Touch now, and see how far tilt/motion sensing has come since then.
That being said, yes, we'll have to see how easily developers can implement it for it to be worthwhile. But the same can be said about the Wiimote in the first place. In some games it works well, in others, not so much, primarily based on what the developer can do, or puts the effort into figuring out properly.
Anyway, we'll see the same variability in MotionPlus as we have with the Wiimote so far. The good will be better, the bad will be just as bad or worse, and the mediocre will stay mediocre. It won't be a miracle cure to tacked on waggle, shovelware, etc. but the damn thing sells too well for some people to care.
Meanwhile, a lot of innovative, cool games that make in impact artistically will continue to sell poorly.
As it stands, the plain vanilla remote can sense a lot more than developers and gamers give it credit. However, the tech has to be toned down lest every sneeze or shaky hand would throw your game off.
One other thing, most developers can't even do basic motion sensing right. MotionPlus isn't magically going to turn them into motion-sensing gods.
I wouldn't expect many developers to jump on board with this either, aside from adding something a little extra to those who have it, not everyone will own it, so I don't see a lot of games being developed that will require the motion plus to get the full experience.
I doubt the precise position matters in a rhythm game.
Therefore, the MotionPlus won't matter.
Wasn't that easy?
Over two years and counting. This is a fad for the ages.
Then there's the actual games designed from the ground up that use MotionPlus which so far, have all been sports titles. From Wii Sports Resort and Virtua Tennis to Tiger Woods and Grand Slam Tennis. The one thing they all have in common is that the accuracy and precision of the heavy use of motion control in those games has seen a significant improvement thanks to the peripheral's multi-gyroscope.
Games like Wii Sports essentially perfectly demonstrate Motion+'s new capabilities in terms of properly measuring rotational and diagnol motion control found in the Swordplay, frisbee throwing and the the jet-ski games.
The problem with the Wii remote is that while it works well enough in some games, the accelerometer can accidentally mistake one motion for a different one (like if you want to do a left motion gesture swing but instead the game translates that as being a right or even a downwards or upwards motion gesture swing) because its measurement capabilities aren't precise enough.
Games built from ground up with MotionPlus in mind might actually be pretty awesome. I'd like to think this will help bring in that mythical Bushido Blade for the Wii from my dreams.
And in particular, I don't know what type of motion play is involved in Major Minor, but I can beleive that what ever it is just might not be in line with what the MotionPlus offers (at least from a "what's fun and important to this game" point of view, which a game producer/designer will be looking at it from)
Just think of all the potentiality the MotionPlus would offer. The current Wii games give only a sample taste of motion control. While it may be fun initially it is certainly not precise.
In a game like No More Heroes, I want the character to mirror my movement of the Wii Controller. Not just some simple horizontal and vertical attacks.
As for the comment made by the developer of Major Minor's Majestic March: "Maybe MotionPlus titles need to be planned as such from the beginning." That seems like a no-brainer to me. You can have the best hardware in the world, but it won't mean much if the developers don't create their games to fully take advantage of it.
Everyone thought what MotionPlus will do is what the Wii was already supposed to do, instead we just got lots of waggle, now they expect us to pay extra for functionality we all thought was going to be there in the first place, no thanks.
Nintendo never once said that the Wii remote would have perfect 1:1 motion control functionality from the beginning. A lot of people keep saying "Ooh, MotionPlus, something that should have been there from the beginning." Anyone who thought that functionality would be built in from the start set themselves up for disappointment, and shouldn't be blaming Nintendo.
As far as the actual article, I don't think the point of MotionPlus is to throw it in every single game ever made and expect the games to get better. I third Hiltz --- You have to build a game with the device in mind.
Nintendo didn't want to contribute to rising development costs, increased game prices and complex controls. Besides, Nintendo already tried taking that path with the GameCube. While Nintendo did make a profit, it lost significant market share. Besides, it didn't make sense to have 3 similar home consoles competing against each other then or now in my opinion.
As we all know, Nintendo has a thing for peripherals and quite frankly, most of them have been gimmicky, one-trick ponies. I do however, have to give credit for Nintendo for not being afraid to experiment with unique ideas.
Better hardware only means better technical game design which is important, no question about it. Whether the game is actually fun, is a whole different matter. As Nintendo and other developers has shown, you don't necessarily need better hardware in order to make better, more enjoyable games or even original and innovative ones for that matter.
- Taken from a 1up interview:
1UP: So for the Wii, do you have things in the works for the MotionPlus add-on?
AT: Well, we have a demo using MotionPlus; we have some early things going on. I feel that it is really a huge difference in quality and precision. I feel like a lot of things that we felt were going to be doable with the former controller are going to now be doable for sure. You know, like games using swords — everything can be improved. We did dancing stuff here [referring to Boogie], but the problem that we discovered was that it was more difficult or challenging than it should have been; this time we can do tons more stuff. I’m not saying we’re definitely going to do more dancing stuff again, but the control is now so tight. It’s really going to be fun.
1: at the time of the wii launch wii motion plus (1on1 control) was to expensive to implament into the controllers so nintendo released a remote that had some motion sensing which was aforabdle at the time.
2: some games are more focused on motion control then others, a lot of games are fine with yust waggle and light jesters movements they realy dont benefit much from motion plus (example mario galaxy) , other games benefit from more precis movements (at which the wii mote fails atm) (wii boxing)
prob in the future we will see a wiimote with wii motion plus already inside.
Exciting times...exciting times
What are you talking about? Wii Music doesn't even support MotionPlus and the game was never viewed as being a killer-app title. Although it did sell a million copies.