Upgraded Remote Gives Wii New Spark

With sales slowing, the Wii needs a shot in the arm, and Nintendo thinks it’s found one with Wii MotionPlus, a little accessory that plugs into the bottom of the controller, giving it a gyroscope that can detect more subtle motions. The results are nice, writes Katherine Boehret for the Wall Street Journal: “You don’t feel like you accidentally made a good—or bad—shot.”

The added realism makes games more challenging, but more rewarding, with more natural movements. Still, Boehret warns, the update “is more of an evolutionary change than a revolutionary change,” and that Wii newcomers “wouldn’t know what you were missing if you used the remote without MotionPlus.” Microsoft’s Project Natal could be the real revolution: It uses cameras, not a controller, to sense movements. (More Wii stories.)