Why Isn't Wii Sports Resort + MotionPlus Cheaper?
By Ben Salter
Watch as Wii Sports Resort becomes the game to knock off Wii Fit and take the top spot as the best selling game in Australia for an extended period. There’s no doubting the primary purpose of Wii Sports Resort is to show off Nintendo’s MotionPlus attachment; it is another tech demo. We must then ask, why is it the price of a full retail game? Surely Nintendo could have lowered the RRP to help their quest to get as many MotionPlus units into Wii homes as possible.
Fortunately Nintendo know it’ll appeal to the large market of Wii Sports fans out there. If the Wii is to be a serious Motion console in the coming years MotionPlus must become standard and be implemented in as many games as possible. If everyone buys a copy of Wii Sports Resort now with a ‘free’ MotionPlus unit the transition, or forced controller upgrade, will be a lot smoother for Nintendo, or at least they hope. In that regard it’s in their best interest that anyone and everyone that owns a Wii goes out and buys a copy of Wii Sports Resort. On top of that most people aren’t going to play Wii Sports Resort alone, so they are going to be forced to fork out for additional MotionPlus’.
Wii Play + a Wii Remote has been one of the best selling games for almost 3 years by being offered for $10 more than a Wii Remote on its own. If Nintendo charged a little more than MotionPlus by itself - maybe an RRP of $50 rather than $30 - Wii Sports Resort would all of a sudden be much more appealing to everyone. It would easily fly off shelves if this were the case, although I predict it will none the less.
Wii Sports Resort does its job very well. It is great as a tech demo and tutorial for Wii MotionPlus, as the original Wii Sports was for the Wii Remote in general. As a sequel, and game on its own right, Wii Sports Resort is certainly lacking. The end result is a complication of mini-games that most people are either going to buy for MotionPlus, or for the social aspect of the original title. Don’t get me wrong, the game is far more in depth than Wii Play, but it’s not at the standard we would expect from a full retail release.
Some people were surprised that the game was not released on its own, without MotionPlus, but that would defeat the purpose. Wii Sports at its core is a multiplayer title. If you didn’t already own a MotionPlus unit you’re going to have to purchase one, if not three, more for the complete multiplayer and Wii Sports experience. Lets face it, who would buy Wii Sports for the single player component? Taking that into consideration Nintendo would easily have made a bucket load of cash off of extra MotionPlus unit sales if the game had a reduced RRP. Sure, they’ll still get that but surely they are going to upset some fans. What about poor old dad who bought a Wii for his kids, and now has to folk out $200 for Wii Sports Resort that can be enjoyed by 4 people?
The Wii is meant to be a social experience, and Wii Sports is what started that trend. It came free, and is one of the leading factors to the Wii’s sudden rise to fame and tremendous success. If Nintendo really wanted MotionPlus to have the same success with a majority of existing Wii owners, then they should have started Wii Sports Resort at a reduced RRP. If they seriously want to compete with Sony and Microsoft when it comes to motion gaming over the course of the coming years MotionPlus is going to be a requirement. Wii Sports Resort could have sneakily introduced multiple MotionPlus units into each Wii household if it were cheaper. I fear, for now at least, many Wii Sports Resort adopters will make do with just one or two MotionPlus’ and in the process reduce the social experience of Wii gaming.
We’ll have our review of Wii Sports Resort up in the next few days.
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