You can draw a pretty straight line from the original Wiimote to Motion Plus to the gyro sensor in 3DS and Wii U to the Switch, I really don't think modern motion controls on Switch would be meaningfully affected if Sixaxis had never happened.

Or you can just look at history, figure out that Sixaxis was first "standard industry" controller that had gyro, and that playing aircrafts in Warhawk in 2007 on PS3 isn't any different than playing games on Switch I've bolded in my original reply, which has "standard industry" controller with gyro - unlike playing Wii Sports Resort, where having "per hand" gyro/motion enabled controllers is quite a bit different experience akin to modern VR and games like Eleven Table Tennis, All in One Sports, Walkabout Mini Golf and similar.

I'm not belittling Wii (I love it and still regularly play it after all these years), but get up and play of Wii and VR titles is for me very different from sit down and gyro aim games on PS3/VITA/PS4/PS5 and WiiU/Switch - and that's why I don't see (mostly optional) "Doom Eternal and Sniper Elite, to BOTW and Splatoon" that you mentioned as actual "motion control" games that are legacy of Wii, instead of gyro aiming games of PS3.

Now Sony did doubled down on that initially, only to forget all about it later, so it could be said that Nintendo later popularized the concept. If anything, all this  reminds me a bit of iPhone fans preaching that iPhone was the first smartphone.

Motion Plus and with it gyro was most likely going to happen anyway regardless of Sixaxis, it's just the natural next evolutionary step from the Wiimote. The gyroscope itself goes back to the 1800s, its not like it was invented for the Sixaxis.

And the Wii had games that require tilting motions like Sixaxis from launch with Excite Truck. Heck, Kirby Tilt n Tumble had tilt controls on the Gameboy Colour back in 2000; whether you use a gyroscope or an an accelerometer to measure it ultimately doesn't really matter.

Sure, gyro is nothing new, but Sixaxis was the first that was standard controller with it and that enabled gyro aiming (with 3 Axis / 6DoF) which is not the same as what you're mentioning (which is 2 Axis). And if IIRC, Wii Motion Plus would be there from the start, if Nintendo didn't think it's too expensive for the time (or something like that). But it wasn't there from the start, and gyro in PS3 controllers were.

So, as I said, I will never think of sitting and playing BotW or Sniper Elite or any of the other games you mentioned that are played with standard controllers with gyro aiming and think "oh, this comes from the Wii legacy", but I will fire up Eleven Table Tennis VR and think "oh, this is similar (but way more precise) to what was Wii doing".

Sixaxis existed, just like motion controls technically existed before the Wii, but that's not where motion controls on Switch come from.

You can trace back the lineage of motion on Switch through Nintendo's own hardware going back to way before the Sixaxis. Its existence is incidental.

I really don't think many people using motion controls on Switch today are going to be thinking "wow, to think this all started with the Sixaxis."

Pelican released 3rd party motion controls for N64. Dreamcast had motion controls in the Fishing controller and it worked for Soul Calibur. SEGA Activator was Kinect before Kinect. Given the many strange PC controllers of the mid to late 90s. Prob find several motion based ones with Gyro.

3rd party stuff in the 16 bit era as well.

Gyro is as "Motion Controls" as the IR pointer and waggle. The fact the Nintendo managed to actually implement it in consistently beneficial ways in otherwise traditional games does not magically make it not motion controls, unless you are actively trying to attribute only the things that have negative connotations to motion controls.

I'm not sure most people using Switch today even had experience with PS3. I've never had VITA, but when a friend of mine showed me aiming in Uncharted Golden Abyss, I thought "nice, so it has gyro like PS3" - because I've experienced it. When I saw Ocarina of Time 3DS, I thought "nice, 3DS also has gyro". WiiU came out, and it had a Gamepad with gyro as standard (and I was so pissed that cheapskates didn't put it in Pro controller). I thought, this is it, every console from now on will have gyro. Bliss. And then...fucking Microsoft.

Obviously, you can tell I really like gyro. For those few specific cases, since it's very limited and not very good in most other things. And PS3 was the first console that had it as a standard. So yeah, first thing I think of when it comes to gyro aiming, if I'm going back in time, is exactly PS3. And that's where motion controls really end with Sixaxis. If you're going to stand up and play, you really need something like Wii remotes/VR controllers - and that for me is actually a whole different game that currently mostly lives in VR (and why I think Switch 2 will have some sort of VR support - Quest 2 currently being $200, standalone VR console with two controllers and additional PCVR wireless functionality just reaffirms me in belief that if Nintendo doesn't jump into VR, they're just leaving the money on the table).

@HoloDust We get that but honestly this just comes off as thinly veiled console warring. That became obvious once you mentioned waggle. You continue to try to separate gyro from Wii and motion based gaming, when it all is part of motion controls. The original controller used accelerometer and had no gyro but the Wii already accomplished some of what gyro gaming did, which is mostly tilting the controller. Like Curl already mentioned, Mario Kart Wii literally already allowed me to tilt the controller to steer, Wii bowling allowed me to tilt the controller to curve my roll. Like obviously it wasn't very accurate until gyro but dude seriously saying you associate standing and play with Wii is wildly inaccurate. 

The controller was literally turned sideways (NES style) to play several games, those games used tilt, similar to what we see with gyro. Gyro just makes the tilt more accurate and good enough for aiming. You seem to associate the Wii controller being a wand to only motion games you stand up and play. That I think is your mistake because Wii controllers being turned sideways and played was definitely popular in Mario Kart or even Smash Brawl with no motion. NSMB Wii also popular in using the controller sideways. Wii motion gaming was definitely far more than standing and swinging the controller, that was flat out inaccurate.

You also need to realize you are clearly the minority in PS fans caring about gyro. Fortnite literally didn't add gyro to other platforms until 2022 lol, it's was on Switch the day it released (2018), same with Overwatch (2019) which I think still doesn't have gyro aiming on PS lol. You literally have devs being requested by Nintendo to include gyro aiming. How can you associate this to PS when PS clearly could careless? Blaming MS is hilarious when PS should be pushing it for their gamers like Nintendo. Like this is so weird, PS the brand that shows no enthusiasm for gyro aiming is the brand responsible because PS3 used gyroscopes before Wii? No Wii the console that popularized motion gaming whether you are standing to swing or sitting to steer popularized all of it.

Considering how poorly the sixaxis controller and its version of motion controls were received, I'm not inclined to give it much credit for the current proliferation of gyro controls. I really doubt anyone was looking at the sixaxis and saying 'this is what we need to copy and make standard' when incorporating gyro functionality into future controllers or handhelds any more than people were looking at the Virtual Boy when adding 3d functionality to certain games circa 2010.