Unquestionably, setting up Nintendo’s Wii MotionPlus peripheral is the easiest part of owning a Wii. It’s a very small dongle with a very obvious output that fits quite nicely onto the bottom of the Wii Remote, home to a very obvious input. If you’ve made it up to this point — connecting your composite/component cables to your television, threading the Sensor Bar’s wire behind your entertainment center, and syncing the Wii Remote to your console — this is the least of your worries.
But Nintendo wants to make sure you don’t run into any problems, and has created one of the most mind-numbing, almost-insulting hardware setup tutorials you’re likely ever to see. Found on the disc for Electronic Arts’ Grand Slam Tennis (and presumably, other Wii MotionPlus-compatible games to follow), the three-minute video will walk you through the setup step-by-step. It’ll then show you how to take it off, and will even instruct you to use your fingers to pull back a small tab to insert the Nunchuk. You know, in case you were reaching for a pocket knife, flathead screwdriver, or phone to call Nintendo customer support.
What’s worse, when you watch this atrocity for the first time, there’s no way to exit out of it — none of the Wii Remote’s buttons (including the “home” button) will function. You simply must view it through to the end. When I made the mistake of watching it in the hopes that it would show me how the peripheral works with Grand Slam Tennis, I was forced to sit through all three excruciating minutes.
So consider this a warning: Don’t click on the “Wii MotionPlus Instructional Video” unless you find everything about life confusing. If that’s the case, check out the video I captured of the tutorial after the jump; you might want to take notes.
