“We don’t force developers to stick to a particular control scheme”

A few weeks back I attended Nintendo's media summit wherein they showed off all their upcoming releases for the first half of 2010. Considering it was such a huge push with "Wii Sports Resort," I was surprised by the absolute dearth of Wii MotionPlus games in the line-up. In the first half of the year there will only be one: "FlingSmash." Last week I caught up with Reggie Fils-Aimé, President of Nintendo of America, and asked where all the first party Wii MotionPlus games are.

"There's tremendous support for Wii MotionPlus. First, what it would highlight is that 'Wii Sports Resort' continues to sell exceptionally well. In addition to that you're seeing some fantastic third party support. 'Red Steel 2'...about to come out. And from a first party perspective we showed 'Fling Smash.' There are more titles that are coming, it continues to be a core part of what we do."

While I hear him say "tremendous support," I'm not convinced. It seems like there was a big priority in 2009 with "Resort" and "Wii Fit 2," but since then it's been extremely quiet.

There are three major franchise games that spring to mind ("New Super Mario Bros. Wii," "Super Mario Galaxy 2" and "Metroid: Other M") that don't use MotionPlus at all, and while it's been hinted that the next "Zelda" will feature it, that's likely a 2011 release.

Regarding those non-MotionPlus franchise games, though, Reggie made a point of saying that Nintendo doesn't like to force control schemes upon their developers:

"But I guess what's unique with Nintendo is we don't force our developers to stick to a particular type of control scheme, and you've seen that. Everything from the new 'Metroid' title to be single remote driven to 'Fling Smash' utilizing the Wii MotionPlus. So it's all about what's right for the game."

It'll be interesting to see whether Nintendo ramps up MotionPlus software development in time for the release of Natal and PlayStation Move later this year.

I have to admit I too am a bit let down by lack of Motion Plus games at the moment. I just have Wii Sports Resort. I am not sure why he said Wii Motion Plus for NSMBWii not a reason at all for it in that game.

i wish nintendo made the focus on motion plus support 80% of the time

That photo was taken right before a wild Reggie attacked.

I say wait for E3. I suspect (translation: hope) Nintendo will have some near release awesome software that only they could come up with. I've learned to be patient when it comes to Nintendo.

In terms of WM+, I haven't seen squat this year besides Red Steel 2.
It isn't that Nintendo doesn't wanna force them to use it....but who is actually making any games for the Wii that need that much precision?

Nintendo must improve WM+ functionality further, so their 2nd half titles will probably feature the peripheral much more than we've seen yet.

I wish that they will sart forcing their developers to start making some awesome M+ games.

It's relatively new still.

Developers have to get used to the new tech.

I think in due time we'll see great M+ games come out.

Move may attract to more developers for WM+...

Developers have had 4 years to come up with good ideas for motion controlled games. I'm not holding my breath. They waited for Nintendo to make a sports minigame collection, and then they all followed suit. Then they waited for Nintendo to make an exercise game, and then they all followed suit. I guess the idea is that they're waiting for Nintendo to make Zelda Wii with Motion+ and go "oh that's how you do it!" and suddenly make some really amazing games.

But already, with a whole year of Motion+ on the market they're jumping ship to make games for the Move instead. That's where all the stellar bowling, dancing, painting, and minigames are going to be from now on. Developers prefer to make their motion games in HD so they cost more.

But I bet some of the Move games will eventually get ported to Wii Motion+, since it has a much larger userbase (somewhere around 14 or 15 million to zero as of today).