Fad Gimmick

Nintendo is no stranger when it comes to the business of selling gaming peripherals such as the Wii Motion Plus. The wii motion plus accessory was introduced late in the Wii system life cycle. It was designed to provide accuracy to motion controls and simply breathe life into motion gaming which was quickly becoming a fad gimmick. Nintendo released a Wii Sports Resort game to compliment and showcase the new Wii Motion Plus accessory while third party publishers Ubisoft also made Red Steel 2 to be exclusive to Wii Motion Plus control.

But the one game that would forever be remembered and associated with Motion Plus is the Legend of Zelda : Skyward Sword. Releasing a high-profile AAA-game supporting the new hardware is always a sound strategy to move more hardware and software. It certainly worked with me as I bought the new Wii Motion Plus controller way before the Zelda game was released. There were only a handful of games that supported the device at the time and I owned none of them. Maybe I expected more Wii games to eventually support the new controller and I certainly never thought I would put it to use for only one game. 

The Wii popularity was quickly fading at the time and even the new Zelda failed to extend the life cycle of the system. Nintendo quickly released their next console system the Wii U the following year and we all know how that story ends. Looking back at the history of Wii Motion Plus, the accessory was released for two full years before the Zelda game came out and yet only 6 Wii games absolutely required it.

This is a classic example of Nintendo coming up with a idea and never fully embracing it for whatever reasons. And they are still doing this in recent years, like the 3D screen of the 3DS system and I suspect the HD motion control of the Switch will be next. Playing Skyward Sword made me reflect back on the MotionPlus controller and the novelty of the concept. As I have yet to finish the game, I realised it would be difficult to talk about it without referring to the Motionplus because of its deep connections to it. 

Of course, the Wii system was eventually sold with the Motionplus bundled inside but early adopters like myself who bought the controller separately really felt the pinch because of how poorly it was supported by publishers.