Wii MotionPlus and Sports Resort dated

By Tom Bramwell Published 14 April, 2009

Plus, Virtua Tennis support confirmed.

Nintendo has announced that the Wii MotionPlus add-on will launch in Europe on 12th June, with pricing still to be confirmed.

One MotionPlus peripheral will also be bundled with each copy of Wii Sports Resort, which goes on sale in Europe on 24th July.

The US dates, meanwhile, are 8th June for WMP and 26th July for Wii Sports Resort. WMP alone will cost USD 19.99 in the States.

That means that Wii Sports Resort will not be a launch title for the add-on, which tracks movements in finer details than the Wiimote.

In fact, for the moment, it's not entirely clear what the launch title will be, or even if there is one. EA's Grand Slam Tennis is thought to be out on 19th June in Europe, with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 expected after that.

Nintendo's press release also confirms reports that the Wii version of Virtua Tennis 2009 is compatible with MotionPlus.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (23) Latest comment 3 years ago

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

  • insincere_dave #1 3 years ago

    What a comMOTION!

  • ArcMonkey #2 3 years ago

    Wii Sports Resort to be the new Wii Fit?

  • imamazed #3 3 years ago

    What a rip off!

    I, like many others, will probably buy it early missing out on the free game.

  • spekkeh #4 3 years ago

    I take it it's region free? Will probably be an import then.

  • CallousB #5 3 years ago

    "What a rip off!

    I, like many others, will probably buy it early missing out on the free game."

    Free game? Pfft

    Wii sports Resort (including MotionPlus) will likely be £39.95- £49.95.

  • LazyDan #6 3 years ago

    YEAAHHH Wii Sports resort comes out on my birthday.


    I would like to think this is Nintendo's way of thanking me for being one of the only 'hardcore' gamers to be really looking forward to this.

  • Burkey123 #7 3 years ago

    ''for being one of the only 'hardcore' gamers to be really looking forward to this.''

    You are not alone. I too am looking forward to this.

  • DrDamn #8 3 years ago

    That's quite a price for something I would guess the vast majority of owners think the wiimote already does. It will be a hard sell I think. Quite interested to see where it takes games which use it though.

  • Pac-man-ate-my-wife #9 3 years ago

    USD 19.99 in the States.

    I wonder what the UK price will be?

    /changes dollar sign to pound sign

  • Malek86 #10 3 years ago

    With basically a hundred million Wiimotes out there, I'm not sure this WMP will have an easy life. It's probably going to be confined as "optional accessory" in every game released, except maybe some Nintendo ones, because they are the only ones who can do Majora's Mask with mandatory Pak support and still sell several million units.

    Anyway, I'll probably pick up one for myself. Not WSR though, didn't care much for Wii Sport.

  • cak #11 3 years ago

    So, to summarize, in the end of 2006 Nintendo released their new console.
    In the age of internet gaming, they had no plans for dlc or for patches (and no mass storage anyway), and online gaming system was dodgy and based on weird codes.
    The computing and graphic capability of the system was comparable to consoles released 5 years before. No dvd playing or other multimedia capability.
    But of course Nintendo had an ace up their sleeve! Built-in motion recognition technology! How wonderful is that! Well, not much, as it was so sloppy they had to release a clunky add-on 2 years and a half later (!) in order to improve precision.
    In the meantime, 80% of the games released for the system aren't good enough to go beyond the 60% mark on metacritic.
    Isn't it cute that after all of that Nintendo is dominating the gaming world?
    Man, if Sony or Microsoft had thought of making commercials showing people playing from the eyes of a tv set, we would all live in a different world now.....

  • LazyDan #12 3 years ago

    Your tears taste of anguish and bitterness, please provide more for the rest of the gaming community. (Goes great with spicy nachos - often served at parties where everyone is playing the Wii.)

  • CallousB #13 3 years ago

    "I'm not sure this WMP will have an easy life"

    Hard to say to be honest...especially considering the recession.
    I would guess Nintendo are hoping for sales of 15-20 million units of Wii Sports Resort over the year ..and it's the sort of title that should have legs.

    They would be wise to include it as standard with all future Wii hardware bundles.

  • Stompy #14 3 years ago

    "There just arent any games with depth on the Wii. Exactly the reason it works so well at parties."

    It also works with a wider demographic than normal, because most people see gaming as a leisure pursuit that does not need depth. Much like, say, a Hollywood blockbuster or a trashy airport novel.

  • penhalion #15 3 years ago

    I don't get it. How exactly does motion plus actually work?

    Never mind, one of the Wii guys at work explained it to me. Gyroscopes basically.
    Edited by 1 at 14/04/09 @ 15:39

  • Malek86 #16 3 years ago

    Of course they should put it in future Wii bundles. However, even so, since it's not a mandatory update, developers will be forced to take into account the millions of people who won't have one (and, in the case of uninformed casual consumers, can't be bothered to even know it exists).

    Putting a sticker "WMP required" is not going to help sales of a game, actually, it could be detrimental, because it means a percentage of owners won't be able to play it. Unless Nintendo does it, of course. As I already said, Nintendo can do whatever they want and people will buy it. But evey other developer should be wary of an upgrade that changes things greatly but is not mandatory. For example, how many PSX games actually required a Dual Shock?

  • smelly #17 3 years ago

    >What a rip off!

    it's $20!

    That's around 10 quid?

  • smelly #18 3 years ago

    >Putting a sticker "WMP required" is not going to help sales of a game, actually,


    They COULD put "requires wii balance board" on a game if they liked though - considering the balance board has outsold the ps3..

    (almost)

  • Malek86 #19 3 years ago

    smelly: still, that would mean restricting your potential buyers from 50 millions to 15 millions. Uhm... not a good idea. Indeed, the only games that require the BB nowadays are either Wii Fit clones, or Wii Fit itself. Everything else has optional support, with "optional" being the keyword here. Same is probably going to happen to the WMP, unless Nintendo can find a way to coerce every Wii owner out there into buying it.

  • smelly #20 3 years ago

    "still, that would mean restricting your potential buyers from 50 millions to 15 millions. Uhm... not a good idea. "

    So why are people making ps3 exclusives then? ;-)


    "Same is probably going to happen to the WMP, unless Nintendo can find a way to coerce every Wii owner out there into buying it."


    I personally dont see the WMP actually being of much use to many games. For me it'll only help sports games and sword swinging games. I cant see how it'll help any other game.. but i stand to be proved wrong.

    I'll obviously be getting one (Will probably wait for wii sports 2 first though)


    ALSO to note is the dating of this release.. 4 days after E3.. Therefor i expect most of nintendos presentation will be games which support it..

  • bionutz #21 3 years ago

    no problem to buy the wiimotionplus, but don't give me stupid games with stupid avatars. I get a visceral disgust feeling when I see wii sports or the nintendo avatars...

  • Ryze #22 3 years ago

    £60 quid in the UK, then?

  • tardo #23 3 years ago

    >What a rip off!

    it's $20!

    That's around 10 quid?


    --------


    It used to be, it's probably closer to £13/£14 now. I can't see Nintendo charging less than £15/£20 for it though.

    I'm looking forward to it anyhow. and will probably buy at least two of them. and maybe four, should the multiplayer games be that good/worth having the full set.