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They say that history repeats itself; can Nintendo break the curse of unsuccessful motion-sensing controllers? We take a look at failed attempts from the past, including some by Nintendo themselves!

The general buzz is that gaming as we know it is going to change this November. With the release of the Nintendo Wii, gamers are going to find themselves immersed in their games in a new and revolutionary way thanks to the Wii’s motion-sensing controller. Or at least that’s what Nintendo will have us believe. In reality, what Nintendo is trying to do is far from revolutionary.



Ever since the first video gamers wrapped their hands around Pong paddles, game developers have been trying to find ways to utilize motion-sensing technology to create a more immersive experience. Obviously, none of them caught on, since buttons and d-pads are still the status quo. But why did they fail? I have researched three such devices in an attempt to figure out what it was that made them so terrible.

POWER GLOVE (NES)

This first attempt at motion-sensing control technology comes from none other than Nintendo themselves. Many of you may remember The Wizard. For those of you who don’t – and you should consider yourselves lucky – it was essentially a 90-minute advertisement for Super Mario Bros. 3 operating under the pretense of a kids’ movie. Fred Savage’s rival, Lucas, is shown in the movie to be a hardcore gamer because he used a NES Power Glove. The film’s most oft-quoted catchphrase is Lucas’s opinion of the controller: “I love the Power Glove. It's so BAD!”



He was completely right. The Power Glove was flat-out terrible. Its features were impressive enough on paper: not only could it detect 3D motion for specially designed games, it also read movement on a 2D axis to function as a normal NES pad. However, the way it worked was by reading movements from your fingers. So even if it had been accurate enough to be useful, you would have to keep your knuckles completely still for hours at a time!



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