This is hardly anything new. Nintendo has always been cost-averse, as befits a small company. They follow the entrepreneur's code: you don't need a lot of capital to make a lot of capital. So they minimize expenses to maximize profits. I'd say it works pretty well, seeing as even their worst investments only had a minimal return instead of causing significant losses.

All that said and out of the way, I doubt MotionPlus will cause any more confusion than the Nunchuk or Wii Wheel does. To the expanded audience, it will just be another Wii Remote expansion, no more or less significant than any of the others.

I guess it depends solely on the publisher that puts the game out. A game like Boom Blox should've probably debuted at $40 or maybe even $30, and Blast Works should have came out at $30 (even though it dropped to $20 rather quickly). I do believe a majority of the Nintendo-developed games are worth their price, but it's third parties that are a bit overzealous (Boom Blox being published by the giant of EA didn't help with that game) in trying to milk everything out of a game they can.

Also, as far as I know, Nintendo has always been that way in regards to not taking a dive and losing money on things. They may take some gambles with their consoles (Wii being their biggest payoff since the SNES probably), but I guess their almost clear dominance in the handheld market allow them such liberties (although that may differ slightly with the DSi).

Actually, the Wii is Nintendo's biggest payoff since the NES. The SNES was not that big of a success; after the NES, in fact, it has a huge letdown financially speaking. It was still profitable, but only a shadow of the NES' profits were raked in from it.

The NES also had more diverse competition where it was easier to separate itself as unique from the rest of the market.  The SNES faced a pretty strong console opponent and even had to overcome Blast Processing.  The SNES did very well.

In a lot of ways Nintendo follows an "Old Fashioned" business model (because they're a very old company) where they do their business in cash rather than credit; and the current credit crisis demonstrates why this is/(could be) a wise approach. With this in mind, Nintendo has to produce a product which sells well at a price where they're not losing a lot of money on it; on top of this they're also very aware on what a consumer is willing to pay for a particular product.

I suspect that, when the Wii was launched, using the technology inside of the Wii MotionPlus in the standard Wiimote would have pushed the manufacturing cost of the Wiimote to a level where it wasn't profitable at $40 (and the nunchuck couldn't be profitable at $20) and they knew that few people would be willing to spend $50+ on a Wiimote (or $30+ on a Nunchuck) ...

Well Nintendo choosed to go with an affordable console instead of a heavily priced console.

They take care of their clients in their own way, but they saw them a source of income too... they took the best business choice, and now they are getting rich because of it...

Nintendo has never needed to go in the red, they engineer their products to be rather cheap to produce but powerful.  And honestly looking at your other post about Nintendo not offering the best hardware from the start you know nothing of the video game industry.  SNES was stronger then Gen, N64 stronger then PS1, and GC stronger then PS2. 

Now look at your comment here "Staude: nintendo "could" have done like certain other companys and made sure their customers got the best hardware they could offer for their money...

And i really believe that they chose not to because they would make more money, so when someone says "sony" as a company is a asshole, think about what nintendo makes you do."

It's a bit of a contradiction... it's amazing how Nintendo created much better hardware then the PS2 at a much lower cost and still never went in the red, they never had to cause they're good at business.  Sony doesn't go in the red for the customer they go in the red to make money off software, know how they do this?  Marketing to hype an above average game to make loads of profits.

Honestly I love Sony and their products but to have the blinders on like you do is just flat out wrong.

/end

Staude is wrong anyways ... It was heavily reported that the Gamecube was losing about $20 for Nintendo when it was launched.

nintendo is greedy... its the only bad point they have as company

the wii is being sold at huge profit. and thas great but serious bundling motion plus they would still making big profits
1 billion per quarter come on.

All corporations are greedy... that's why they're corporations, they incorporated to make it easier to make a profit, and in turn the stock holders only care about the profit, therefore greedy... all corporations are greedy so it's not a bad point about them as a company its a bad point about all companies...