Even though it’s been officially released with Tiger Woods 2010, the platform is simply too young to fairly adjudicate. Matt Buchanan performed quite a bit of testing at E3 if you’d like to read his impressions. But in reality, it’s just not the time to make any sort of worthwhile verdict on the device because even Nintendo hasn’t shipped their first Wii MotionPlus title yet. Still, have you picked it up yet?

Yep, that’s right – you can get the peripheral attachment before you can get a game to play it on. Sure, there are a couple of EA games coming out that will use the peripheral, but a wait of over a month for the “flagship” game seems like an obscenely long wait. I guess I’ll probably just wait until July before I start contemplating getting one then…

[Nintendo]

Still, it’s all rumour and heresay at the moment, so take what you will from it (although I’d say it’s probably fairly accurate).

[VOOKS via Kotaku]

The good news: EA will be bundling games you might want, like Tiger Woods 2010, with the Wii MotionPlus dongle. Now for the bad news: UPDATE: Make that more good news!

Early UK pricing puts these games at £29.99 without the dongle and £49.99 with the dongle. Obviously, international pricing doesn’t always translate properly, but that’s about a $US30 difference in “real money” (the state of our economy balances my inherent xenophobia to the point of using finger quotes when promoting the US dollar).

Meanwhile, the Wii MotionPlus standalone dongle will only cost $US20 when it arrives June 8th.

We doubt that EA will be charging a premium over Nintendo’s pricing for Wii MotionPlus (they’re probably just going to charge $US20 extra for their games bundled with the peripheral). But some savings would certainly be appreciated. Otherwise, why bundle at all? (Actually, that question isn’t rhetorical. Shortages on Wii MotionPlus peripherals could easily drive EA’s game sales. So it’s good for them, not so good for you.) [Kotaku]

UPDATE: GameStop is showing Tiger Woods 2010 to run $US50 without the dongle and $US60 with the dongle. That would be a savings of $US10, which would be notable.

Wii MotionPlus may be a tiny dongle that plugs in the bottom of your Wiimote, but Nintendo wants to make sure your TV is offered some enhanced protection all the same.

Since the old rubbers won’t fit over Wii MotionPlus’ Enzyte-infused stature, Wii MotionPlus will come bundled with a new jacket (raincoat, if you will). But unless Nintendo figures out a new Wiimote packaging scheme, Wii purchasers will find themselves overflowing in piles of obsolete controller prophylactics—a true waste if your TV is just on the pill anyway. [GoNintendo via Kotaku]

Nintendo’s Wii Sports Resort, which has been designed specifically for the peripheral, will not be available until July 26. As we reported last July, it will sell for $US50, bundled with one Wii MotionPlus add-on. (In the meantime, a few third party games will fill in the MotionPlus software gap.)

Kotaku is quick to point out that “With Wii Remotes pricing at $USUS39.99, $US19.99 for a Nunchaku and now $US19.99 for the Wii MotionPlus, that means it costs $US80 for a fully loaded Wii Remote.” We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. For a family of four, the Wii has ballooned to be a $US500 system…before batteries. [Kotaku]

But the important thing isn’t that Nintendo’s PR strategy seems to consist of forcing their fans to infer extremely exciting announcements from other, much less interesting ones, it’s that the fantastic MotionPlus controllers that the Wii probably should have come with from the start are finally going to make it to market.

Japan is getting theirs a month early, but the MotionPlus ships to the rest of the world sometime the month after. Maybe that July 10th rumour wasn’t so flimsy after all. [Kotaku]