In a recent interview that can be found at the front page currently, Miyamoto said that Nintendo sees M+ as another peripheral, rather than a necessary add-on. Do you think they will give M+ the same treatment they gave to the Balance Board and Wii Speak, I mean releasing the peripheral bundled with a game and then simply moving on to the next peripheral.

the Balance Board was released in November 2007 and no game since has used it until Punch-Out in May 2009, although it was not mandatory, rather than simply an optional control method. Later this year WiiFit+ will be the second BB only game (almost 2 years after the first one came out) and it will come bundled with the BB as well. No other game besides Rock N' Roll Climber (WiiWare game) is announced to be using the BB.

Wii Speak was launched in November 2008 with AC:CF and since then, no other game has implemented it. Endless Ocean 2, which is coming out in Q1 2010 in the USA will be the second game using it, 1 year and 3 months after the first game. No other games are announced to use it after EO2.

Now Wii Motion+ launched with WSR in June 2009. The next WM+ game is Span Smasher, a small new IP that doesn't have a release date. All the other E3 games aren't using it at all. So probably the next M+ game (Span Smasher) will be coming next year. After that the only rumored game to be using M+ is Zelda, but it's not confirmed so far.

Then in 2010 Vitality Sensor is probably coming out, so all the attention will be shifted towards it and it seems like an endless cycle. A new peripheral each year and little to no support for it because a new one is coming a year after.


Calling it a peripheral is kind of confirming that it will not be a mandatory requirement and that very few games will use it. Is Nintendo missing many opportunities by releasing so many peripherals? Until now history has taught us that Nintendo was never into supporting their own peripherals. Since the NES era until today.

Your "no game" comment about the balance board must mean that Wii Music isn't a game.

You forgot Wii Music used the balance board as well.

But yes, Nintendo is lousy at supporting their own peripherals. Wii Wheel is only used in two games and Zapper has never been used outside of Link's Crossbow Training.

However they have all been heavily supported by 3rd parties. Except Wii Speak...

There's two reasons for Nintendo's lack of support.  One: They don't mandate to anyone, even internally, what must be used.  Two: Nintendo will often let a concept germinate for years with a 1-5 person group until the 'fun factor' is distilled and then begin earnest development. 

I hope they revisit Project HAMMER for WM+ support though.

Oh well, I didn't remember about that one. You can add that one too, but it's not a BB game by any means, it simply has a mode that uses it.

I honestly don't care if Nintendo uses it or not, so long as someone does. So far I have 4 games that use the Balance Board, and 2 more that I want to buy.

For WM+, I have Tiger Woods and my brother has Grand Slam Tennis. So long as someone comes out with a game, I really don't care if Nintendo does or not. Nintendo already said that Zelda will use WM+, Red Steel 2 looks interesting, and I'm sure there will be more games in the future.

Rayman raving rabbids uses the BB. So does a new SMB game just announced. In my opinion Nintendo would be mad not to support and push 3rd party support for the BB. It could be a real golden goose.

Well, my question wasn't about caring or not about Nintendo releasing M+ games. My question was will they release these games or not? Judging by previous peripherals from previous gens and the present one, Nintendo is not willing to support them much. But this time is different, it's an enhancement of the motion sensing capabilities the Wii has and still they don't seem enthusiastic at all, with no new announcements at E3. Had this peripheral been important to them they would have released at least a couple more games along M+.

I think this is indeed going the way of the BB and WS. Vitality Sensor is arriving next year.

They already said Zelda will use it, same for Spawn Smasher.

No way is M+ going to be as under utilized as either peripheral you mentioned. Its bundled with WSR as well as many other games out and upcoming games.

Nintendo are probably still coming up with new ways to use the BB and m+. I agree the WS has been under-used though. This could be quite cool in different genres if implemented correctly.