MotionPlus meets jacket: A troubling combination

News broke today that the Wii MotionPlus will be encased in a permanent, extended Wii remote jacket, and will look like what you see above. My first thought when seeing this wasn't "Oh it's ugly!" or "Time to get my exacto-knife". No, it was "How the hell am I supposed to get the remote in there?".

Maybe you do it differently, but the way I put the Wii remote into the jacket (On the rare occasion I bother to) is entirely incompatible with this design. The bottom part where the MotionPlus now is usually ends up the last part of the jacket I slide the remote into, but that new little nub in the way is not going to let that happen. Let's hope that new jacket is a little stretchier than the old model, because I'd rather not bend the MotionPlus to get it to work.

Not looking forward to figuring this out...

Another problem I'm seeing is incompatibility with just about every Wii remote add-on/accessory in existance. This was already a problem with the original jacket, but now it's made even worse by the fact that people might actually use this sleeve, like it or not. When I found the old jacket to become a nuisance, I just took it off and tossed it in with the rest of my game controllers and such, and I've barely even seen it since. But if this motion plus catches on, it'll be another annoying little step I'll have to take whenever I charge my remotes, play a game NES-style, or use just about any other controller add-on I've accumulated over the past two years. A deal-breaker? Not really, but it's sure an annoyance.

Those inconveniences aside, I understand why they went with this design. First of all, the jacket will keep the MotionPlus from falling out during intense play (One good yank with a Nunchuk plugged in would spell tragedy otherwise). Second, Nintendo sure doesn't want to deal with those crazy damage lawsuits from back in the pre-jacket days. If the MotionPlus shipped outside of the jacket, the old sleeves would be incompatible with the new size and shape of the remote. All it takes is one more hand-meets-fan incident, and the lawsuits roll in once again.

The directionality of the blood drop suggests the victim was standing still whe-Oh, wait, this isn't CSI.

Despite the problems I (And many others) may have with this design choice, there's no denying the awesome possibilities the Wii MotionPlus brings to gameplay. This new add-on is supposedly so accurate that it's actually over-responsive, meaning we're in for one heck of a treat come this June. After all, it's what's inside that counts, even if it's permanently attached to something really ugly on the outside.

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