Nintendo Partners Ramping Up for Wii MotionPlus

One of the highlights of the E3 Nintendo conference was clearly the company’s new Wii Remote attachment, the Wii MotionPlus - particularly as featured in Wii Sports Resort. Today, two key Nintendo partners came out of the woodwork.

InvenSense Inc. has announced that its IDG-600 multi-axis MEMS rate gyroscope has started shipping in mass production quantities to Nintendo for its Wii MotionPlus accessory. The company said its "new class of high performance silicon-based MEMS rate gyroscopes offer smaller package sizes, lower power consumption, and lower price points suitable for consumer markets. The addition of InvenSense’s multi-axis rate gyroscope solution to the Wii MotionPlus accessory allows high precision 3D tracking of rapid gaming gestures."

"The popularity of Wii in large part is based on its popular motion sensing interface and InvenSense’s MEMS rate gyroscope represents a truly disruptive technology that possesses inherent manufacturing and high performance advantages that drives the need for a new generation of Wii Remote," said Genyo Takeda, General Manager of Nintendo’s Integrated Research and Development Division. "Nintendo selected the IDG-600 for its ability to measure large dynamic motions, high shock resistance, and accuracy for sensing the fast moving arm and hand motions required to support exciting new game titles."

While InvenSense’s technology is critical to the new Nintendo accessory, if developers can’t properly utilize it, the tech won’t be widely used. That’s where AiLive comes in, however. The company announced that its LiveMove 2 Motion Control AI Software is now available for Wii MotionPlus developers. "LiveMove 2 recognizes the full 3D position and orientation of the Wii MotionPlus accessory to give an unparalleled experience of natural immersion in the game world," AiLive said. "From realistic sword fighting to accurate golf swings, LiveMove 2 seamlessly maps a player’s motion to in-game animations."

Takeda added, "The revolutionary LiveMove 2 development tool takes the remote to the next level and enables Wii developers to capture the heart and soul of many existing and new players."