"Red Steel 2" Attaches Itself to the Wii's MotionPlus Control

Nintendo famously made money hand-over-fist with the Wii as millions rushed to jump on the video game bandwagon. This June Nintendo hopes to sell all those folks on the concept of the MotionPlus expansion device for the Wii remote (For any not familiar with MotionPlus, it is a peripheral to the Wii Remote that is supposed to more accurately translate player’s actual movements to the screen). But how do you get folks who have already laid out several hundreds of dollars to drop $20 more into your pocket? Exclusivity of games. Red Steel 2 will be just one of those games.

Just as with most things in the wider world, history tends to repeat itself in the world of video games. The original Red Steel game was one of the 3rd party launch titles of the Wii console and according to a report on Kotaku, the second version of the Ubisoft shooter/slasher will be a MotionPlus exclusive, meaning that you will need the MotionPlus peripheral in order to play. So, there you go, repeat, at least for the core gaming crowd who will be the ones buying the game. Just as an aside, according to the same report, the game will also not feature a multiplayer campaign. Together do these limit the appeal of Red Steel 2? Hard to say, but probably. $20 isn’t a lot to plop down I suppose, but I don’t see the millions of mini-games fanatics out there who made the Wii a world-wide phenomenon buying into this. Then again I don’t see these same folks buying into a shooter anyway. The long and short of it is that in addition to a few EA Sports titles, and Wii Sports Resort which will be bundled with the accessory, you should expect at least a few other family friendly titles jump on the MotionPlus-only bandwagon before the end of the year. Will this be enough to create a rush on MotionPlus? We shall see.

–Hobson’s Choice