For the benefit of the whiners and complainers that want to know why the Wii didn’t have Motion Plus from the beginning , the short answer is the technology didn’t exist, at least not in a from you would have been willing to pay for or in a size you would want to hold in your hand.
Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) is the integration of mechanical elements, sensors, actuators, and electronics on a common silicon substrate through microfabrication. The basic idea has been around for a while and it started being used to provide vehicle stability control systems in the early to mid 90’s but at a size, complexity and cost not usable for a game controller.
It has been estimated that at the time of the Wii’s launch MEMS gyro were running >$40@ and would have made the controller big, fragile and >$100 . If it could have been done at all, because no game development tools had even been written.
Satoru Iwata has stated that MotionPlus was conceived soon after the initial launch to address developer demand for more sophisticated motion sensing. The Wii MotionPlus was developed by Nintendo in collaboration with a game development tool company called AiLive.
The InvenSense IDG-600 sensor was designed in accordance to Nintendo's specifications for a high dynamic range, high mechanical shock tolerance (10,000G), high temperature and humidity resistance, and small physical size.
Development of the basic module was announced in late January 2008 http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20080124005340&newsLang=en
Six months later tools were in place and Motion Plus was announced. By early spring 2009 it will be ready in sufficient quantities to support three launch titles. Given the magnitude of the change, this is incredibly rapid development.
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