MotionPlus tech not exclusive to Nintendo

By Robert Purchese Published 8 August, 2008

Maker says there's "more interest out there".

InvenSense, the company that makes the MotionPlus accessory, has told Eurogamer the relationship with Nintendo is "not an exclusive" one.

According to bigwig Joe Virginia, other companies are interested in the tech - but he's not naming any names.

"Of course we're incredibly pleased - delighted would probably be a better adjective - that Nintendo approached us... but it's not an exclusive relationship," Virginia told us.

"I can't get into details about other folks that are interested in this technology, but as you might imagine of course there is more interest out there."

The clip-in Wii peripheral adds a "MEMS (micro electrical mechanical systems) rate gyroscope" to the Wiimote. This allows rotation around the X, Y, and Z axes produced by the accelerometer.

When asked if the technology will open doors for Wii developers, Virginia replied, "Oh absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And the reason we say that is the type of capabilities they have.

"With six degrees of freedom you can basically make any movement at all, and be able to track that in combination with the sensor bar and other sensors included in the Wii remote. Add the gyroscope capability and you have the ability to work in all three dimensions of space," Virginia continued.

"What you're looking at are golf swings; tennis rackets where you can put top-spin on balls; bowling where you can bowl curves; sword motions with forward thrusts; and in Wii Sports Resort the throttle ability." Sounds golden, Virginia.

Motion-sensing cannot work on any more axes; "Six degrees of freedom is the holy grail," apparently. The future will be more responsive and robust gyroscopes that are smaller and cheaper to produce. The power of force feedback within the peripheral is important, too.

"I really think we've just begun to scratch the surface, gaming is a huge application. But if you think of where motions and where motion-sensing can be applied then there are so many applications; this is a great time to be in the business," added Joe Virginia.

"What we hopefully have done is provide our partner with new, increased capability, and what we're so excited to see and await with bated breath is how that will be used.

"Of course in Wii Sports Resort is one application, but what's the future in gaming? I don't know. We provided some great capability and we'll see what happens," he said.

Nintendo is yet to set a standalone price for MotionPlus, but will be bundling the peripheral with Wii Sports Resort - the game used to demonstrate gyroscopic potential during Nintendo's E3 press conference.

We had a chance to see the game and MotionPlus at the show and were very impressed. Head to our hands-on impressions of Wii Sports Resort to find out more.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (31) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • udat #1 4 years ago

    The current Wiimote already works in all 6 axes does it not? I thought this just added precision, rather than functionality. Maybe I am wrong.

  • Razorus #2 4 years ago

    Now we wait for the imitators.

    Oh, and for the first guy, no, the remote has 3 and the nunchuck has 3. Together, they become 6. The motion plus will make the remote a six-axis on its own, therefore with the nunchuck the total will come to 9. Maths FTW.
    Edited by 1 at 08/08/08 @ 11:56

  • JonFE #3 4 years ago

    "With six degrees of freedom you can basically make any movement at all..."
    "Six degrees of freedom is the holy grail..."

    Well, I'll be damned, maybe Sony were right after all!!!

    EDIT: Does the MotionPlus add-on have a port for the nunchuck to connect? I haven't noticed any in the available pictures...
    Edited by 1 at 08/08/08 @ 11:59

  • Mustabuster #4 4 years ago

    The 6 degrees of movement are directional movement in the x, y z planes and rotational movement in the x, y, z planes. This makes 6 altogether. You don't add the nunchuck to make 9 degrees of movement.

  • seasidebaz #5 4 years ago

    @razorus: No. Just no.

    The wiimote and Sixaxis both have 6 axes. Up and down, forward and backward, left and right, pitch, roll, and yaw. 6 all round.

    edit: must learn to type faster...
    Edited by 1 at 08/08/08 @ 12:05

  • asphaltcowboy #6 4 years ago

    baz, aren't the pitch, roll and yaw only when you're pointing at the screen?

  • seasidebaz #7 4 years ago

    @asphalt: no, otherwise I wouldn't be able to do spin in Wiisports bowling

  • FireMonkey #8 4 years ago

    The current system has no yaw (flat spin).
    In bowling games and such, you put side spin on with a horizontal motion, not rotation (and or with some rotation whilst the WiiMote is held downwards, which is then picked up by roll)

    If you place the WiiMote flat on a table, and rotate it nothing is detected, unless the pointer is pointing at the sensor bar, and then you can pick up some positional position, but that obviously fails once you point away from the bar.

    The simple way I have explained what info it picks up, is to imagine a ball on string hanging from the bottom of the Wiimote. The difference in angle between the WiiMote and the string is the info you can receive (hence no yaw).

    The new things gives you that extra rotational info.
    Edited by 2 at 08/08/08 @ 12:30

  • Grunk #9 4 years ago

    Delighted is a verb

  • mcwildcard #10 4 years ago

    Goes to show, at the end of the day a good idea is a good idea, no matter who has it.

    Sony: Motion sensing controllers eh? We'll have a bit of that!

    Nintendo: Six axis' eh? We'll have a bit of that!

  • Eighthours #11 4 years ago

    Sounds golden, Virginia.

    :)

    I can tell you've been thinking that one up all morning, Rob!

  • Chufty #12 4 years ago

    "The future will be more responsive and robust gyroscopes that are smaller and cheaper to produce"

    MotionPlus 2 next year then. Wiis are going to get messy real soon...

  • Muddtallica #13 4 years ago

    JonFE: Yes, you can connect a Nunchuk through the MotionPlus. The jetski segment of Wii Sports Resort uses both.

  • Razorus #14 4 years ago

    Mustabuster and seasidebaz; I'm correct, thank you very much.
    The Wii remote on its own only has three axes of movement. The Nunchuck also has three. A game that uses both objects (let's take Red Steel for example) will therefore be using 6 axes of motion altogether. The motion plus adds another 3 to the REMOTE, making it 6-axis by itself. Plus nunchuck = 9.

    Hang on, let me make that clearer. The nunchuck and remote each have 3 yes? However, they are the same. So it's like having two of the same thing. The MotionPlus will make the remote have more. Also don't forget that the remote has a laser pointer, which when aimed at the screen, can allow you to "rotate".
    Edited by 1 at 08/08/08 @ 13:53

  • seasidebaz #15 4 years ago

    @Razorus: No, you are still wrong, I will admit on further research that the IR bar takes the value up to pseudo-6 axis, but you don't add them together. 9 axes means you that you need to have a 7th axis, ie moving through time either forwards or backwards, an 8th axis, probably moving through microdimensions (something to do with string theory I think), and a 9th axis, which is probably something to do moving through the microdimensions within other microdimensions.

    6 axes are all we have to describe an object in 3-dimensional space.

  • peterfll #16 4 years ago

    What I find interesting is the MP add-on development was completed by a 3rd party.

  • gingerlink #17 4 years ago

    more to the point of the article being the motion plus not being exclusive to nintnedo

    the only thing that worries me about this is how Nintendo said they'd attempted to make the wiimote a peripheral for the gamecube, but found there was too much lag as it was not calibrated to the console. Surely, if this was the case, there will be a similar problem with new motion sensing controllers turning up on other consoles

  • Razorus #18 4 years ago

    haha, seasidebaz, I just realised both our mistakes. My wording was wrong, but I hope you can see what I meant.
    It's physically impossible to have more than 6 axes of motion, yes, I get that. But what I'm saying is, remote+nunchuck+motion plus, each one has three axes. Yes, remote and nunchuck have the same and motionplus has 3 new directions, so it's still 6-axis, but there are nine accelerometers, or whatever they call them.

  • seasidebaz #19 4 years ago

    but found there was too much lag as it was not calibrated to the console

    Too much lag was actually due to the CPU being too slow. I read about this just before the Wii was launched, they apparently had a prototype somewhere but the sheer volume of data coming from the remote meant that the processor got bogged down trying to work out what was happening.

    @Razorus: I got what ya meant ;)

  • seasidebaz #20 4 years ago

    Oh yeah, and it may not be exclusive but it might as well be, this "interest" will be coming from 3rd-party manufacturers. Microsoft keep saying that motion controllers are a gimmick, and Sony won't pay to license the tech, so I think it's pretty much Wii-centric for now.

  • smelly #21 4 years ago

    "Oh, and for the first guy, no, the remote has 3 and the nunchuck has 3. Together, they become 6. The motion plus will make the remote a six-axis on its own, therefore with the nunchuck the total will come to 9. Maths FTW."


    No..

    The wiimote has accelerometers (measures speed you're moving in a certain direction). The problem with this is it doesnt know the direction it's facing AT REST. Thus the reason why you can just do crappy quick shakes to do the same thing as a movement.

    The motionplus improves that by adding gyroscopes.. So it knows where it is at rest.

    Nothing is stopping sony/msoft using gyroscopes.. in fact the sixaxis already is...

  • smelly #22 4 years ago

    >and Sony won't pay to license the tech

    It's nothing clever.. it's just a very precise gyroscope.. Sony are already using gyroscopes in the sixaxis... And msoft have used them before in their old pc controllers.

  • wizbob #23 4 years ago

    It's too late for this generation; My guess is that MotionPlus functionality will be at best an additional menu option in Wii games and will only be available with box-in games if a third party licences the system for Xbox or PS3. Motion-sensing has to be ubiquitous on a platform (i.e. built-in at launch) for developers to take it seriously.

  • ManicMarvin #24 4 years ago

    *dons pedant hat*

    The wiimote has accelerometers (measures speed you're moving in a certain direction).

    The accelerometers measure acceleration, not speed (hence the name). Which is why it's doubly difficult to get position out, especially without the orientation that the gyro will provide, because you have to integrate once to get speed, then again to get position.

  • smelly #25 4 years ago

    @ManicMarvin: Smartarse :-)

    Nah i was TRYING to keep it simple so the harder of thinking on here would understand.. for most people speed = acceleration.

    But yeah.. my phrase of terminology was bunk..
    Edited by 1 at 08/08/08 @ 20:15

  • Fido128 #26 4 years ago

    "Sounds golden, Virginia"

    Hehehe

  • Ryze #27 4 years ago

    M$ already has one in the lab. The question is whether / how they release it, and it not being shite.

  • Vin #28 4 years ago

    Seriously, you chimps wouldn't believe what MS are researching into for the next-gen.

  • IronCladChicken #29 4 years ago

    @peterfll

    I thought the same thing... then again Ninty did steal the balance board idea from some start up called Amiga from 1983...

    JoyBoard
    Edited by 1 at 09/08/08 @ 23:41

  • 3william56 #30 4 years ago

    sends me back in time :D. I just stickytaped two sony controllers togther, and got 12 axes. In fact, pressing X and Square now

  • mglik #31 3 years ago

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