Nintendo, in their wonderfully blinding greed, is releasing the motion plus attachment for 20 dollars. That means 40 for a Wiimote + 20 for a chuck + 20 for M+ = 80 plus tax for a 'full' Nintendo Wii controller. When Resort hits it will come packaged with 1 M+ attachment, Nintendo then wants you to spend 60 more bucks so 3 friends can join you in multiplayer. Resort = 50 + 60 for 3 more M+ = 110 bucks... oh didn't I hear that Resort also uses the Balance Board?
Apparently, casual gamers are wealthy. 10 bucks for M+ made perfect sense. I guess i'll be holding off on Resort, Wii Sports was no fun in just single player and I dont need to spend 50 bucks for Disc Dog. I'll get M+ when games that interest me support it, I remember reading that it doesn't add any more functionality to older games anyway, since you have to program specifically for the M+.
Press release:
REDMOND, Wash.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Nintendo is setting the stage for a blockbuster summer with the announcement of two hotly anticipated product releases. The new Wii MotionPlus™ accessory will hit U.S. retailers on June 8, taking the motion-sensing controls of the popular Wii™ system to new levels of precision and performance. What’s more, these control enhancements will be on vibrant display when the Wii Sports Resort™ game launches on July 26, offering a beach-themed follow-up to the groundbreaking Wii Sports™ game. Wii Sports comes packed with the Wii console. It grew into a worldwide phenomenon and continues to attract millions of new players to the world of video games. Each Wii Sports Resort game comes packed with a single Wii MotionPlus accessory.
When used with specially designed games, Wii MotionPlus tracks players’ movements in finer detail and with greater accuracy than ever before, building upon the innovative wireless function of the motion-sensing Wii Remote™ controller. Even the slightest twist of the wrist or turn of the body is replicated exactly on the TV screen, allowing users to become even more immersed in Wii game play. Designed for easy attachment to the Wii Remote controller, the Wii MotionPlus accessory will be offered at an MSRP of $19.99.
Wii Sports Resort takes the inclusive, fun and intuitive controls of the original Wii Sports to the next level, introducing a whole new set of entertaining and physically immersive activities. With the deep control enhancements of Wii MotionPlus, veteran Wii users and newcomers alike can enjoy unprecedented gaming precision as they cruise on a water scooter, duel with swords, throw a Frisbee® and much more. Wii Sports Resort and Wii MotionPlus will be offered together at an MSRP of $49.99.
“Wii MotionPlus represents a new evolution in video game control. The variety of fun games in Wii Sports Resort show off its incredible precision,” said Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. “Developers around the world are busy working on new ways to incorporate Wii MotionPlus controls into inventive experiences for consumers.”
Remember that Wii features parental controls that let adults manage the content their children can access. For more information about this and other Wii features, visit Wii.com. For more information about Nintendo, visit http://www.Nintendo.com.
On this magical day, we celibate the day Christ turned himself into a bunny and laid chocolate filled eggs, and hid them around the corn field for children to find so the candy companies could profit thus allowing the worlds salivation, (as per my understanding).
Have any of you armchair philosophers ever read the works of Ray Kurzweil, or are familiar with the concept of the technological singularity?
Kurzweil is an AI specialist and has written several books regarding the singularity, the point at which human consciousness merges with computer intelligence to create a 'transcendent' existence. Kurzweil predicts the singularity to be possible roughly in 2045, based upon technology evolving in exponential manner.
French lawmakers are poised to approve a law to create the world’s first surveillance system for Internet piracy, one that would force Internet service providers in some cases to disconnect customers accused of making illegal downloads.
The proposal, called the “Création et Internet” and known informally as the “three strikes” directive, has won preliminary votes by the Parliament and is expected to be approved in both houses Thursday. It has support from the governing party of President Nicolas Sarkozy.
The law empowers music and film industry associations to hire companies to analyze the downloads of individual users to detect piracy, and to report violations to a new agency overseeing copyright protection. The agency would be authorized to trace the illegal downloads back to individuals using the downloading computer’s unique identification number, known as its Internet Protocol, or IP, address, which the Internet service providers have on record.
For a first violation, the agency would send a warning by e-mail.
If a user made another illegal download within three months, a second warning would be sent by certified mail. If a third infraction occurred within a year, the service provider would be required to sever service.
Piracy costs the film and music industry in France at least 1 billion euros, or $1.3 billion, a year in lost sales, according to industry figures.
“This law is definitely overdue and it’s only a fair and proportionate response to a major problem,” said Marc Guez, the managing director of the French Society of Phonographic Producers, which represents recording companies. “Our members are losing more than 500 million euros a year in sales.”
While piracy surveillance systems have been discussed in a number of countries, the French plan goes farther than the measures under consideration elsewhere. On April 1, a law in Sweden called the Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive took effect, allowing industry groups to more easily prosecute copyright piracy.
In the United States, a Congressional committee this week began studying the issue. In a hearing Monday before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, Steven Soderbergh, the film director, cited the French initiative in asking lawmakers to deputize the American film industry to pursue copyright pirates.
In France, the law has attracted prominent support from the French music and film establishment, including Johnny Hallyday, the French rock star, and Denis Olivennes, the former chief executive of the FNAC retail chain.
The International Federation of Phonographic Industry, a group based in London that represents the global music industry, said that 95 percent of all songs downloaded on the Internet last year — including those in France — were illegal downloads. Globally, illegal music downloads cost $12.8 billion in sales, according to the group.
While supporters and opponents both predicted that the proposal would become law, some lawyers and Internet advocates said the measure would face a tougher road before the French Constitutional Council, which can invalidate laws that it determines do not conform with the Constitution.
One of several controversial aspects of the proposal places the onus of proving innocence on those accused, who would only be able to protest their innocence after they were disconnected from the Internet.
“It is always hard to predict how the Constitutional Council may rule, but this new law does not protect the fundamental right to defend oneself,” said Cédric Manara, a law professor at the Edhec Business School in Nice.
Winston Maxwell, a media lawyer at Hogan & Hartson in Paris, said the legal challenges might delay the measure’s effective date.
“But I doubt the Constitutional Council will decide a French citizen has the right to make illegal downloads,” Maxwell said.
Nonetheless, Internet advocates call the French proposal legally unsound on the ground that there are inadequate the provisions for challenging an action, and because it gives industry groups the power to police the Internet. Others question whether the law would unfairly penalize those whose wireless broadband accounts are misused by others. The French law tries to anticipate this by making it a civil infraction for citizens to fail to “secure” their broadband accounts by using approved filtering technology.
That burden, theoretically, would fall on public Wi-Fi hot spots.
Nicolas D’Arcy, a spokesman for France’s ISP Association, the Association des Fournisseurs d’Accès et de Services Internet, said Internet providers were hoping the law would not take effect.
Internet service providers, Mr. D’Arcy said, do not want to become the enforcement arm of French justice and do not trust the law to insulate them from suits brought by customers whose service has been cut off.
“There are so many things wrong with this,” Mr. D’Arcy said.
Other critics say the law will not stop illegal downloads.
Jérémie Zimmermann, director of La Quadrature du Net, an Internet advocacy group based in Paris, said some computer users would turn to encrypted downloads and other methods to avoid detection. On Wednesday, a Swedish company, the Pirate Bay, began a service called Ipredator, which lets users use its virtual private network to make anonymous downloads for 5 euros a month.
“The French law will only drive people further underground,” Mr. Zimmermann said. “It will make the situation worse.”
Michel Thiollière, the French Senate sponsor of the legislation, said the system would probably survive legal review by the council and help preserve the rights of French artists, musicians and actors.
“The mechanism is reasonable and a graduated response designed to bring Internet users to a new world where the rights of creators must be respected,” he said.
