EA Sports executive producer and VP David McCarthy has revealed that Moore's division plans to create and bundle peripherals with some of its sports games. "I think you'll see games using that Rock Band peripheral strategy from EA Sports, even within the next 12 months," McCarthy teased during his Paris GDC lecture, reports Gamasutra.

According to additional comments McCarthy made to Next-Gen, it would seem that EA Sports is specifically focused on developing plastic shells peripherals for Wii. "One of the things we're doing is looking at just playing with the Wii remote in a different way, using a whole new peripheral that's out there, kind of thing. So, basically enabling control for the user in a much different way," McCarthy said, adding, "we are prototyping stuff that really does allow us to play with the Wii remote differently." McCarthy promised that something would be shown to the public in the next few months, maybe as soon as E3.

Source - Gamasutra
Source - Next-Gen

A fresh take on Waggletech® as Alone in the Dark for Wii developer, Hydravision Entertainment, proves its penchant for virtual charades in this new trailer. Seriously, the "flasher" maneuver? Brilliant! Who knew the Wiimote and Nunchuk could be used to mimic the parting of a trench coat? Still, there's nothing quite as immersifying as the overhand bludgeon. Classic.

According to unconfirmed (but "exclusive") information on PlayStation LifeStyle, you can toss another waggle wand prototype on the increasingly large pile of potentially non-existent peripherals. The information, supposedly obtained during a PlayStation 3 focus test held in exotic "****** ****, California," describes motion-sensitive PlayStation 3 controllers that operated via a "mini-tripod that stood about 12 inches high."

Several mini-games, including fencing, paintball and the obligatory tennis are said to have been played with the "incredibly responsive and accurate" devices. PlayStation Lifestyle's "proof" comes in the form of a January e-mail inviting PS3 owners to participate in a focus group "discussing PlayStation 3 games." PlayStation forum chatter does seem to indicate that some Underground members were invited to focus tests in Chicago and Los Angeles during that month, but it lends no credence to the rest of the story.

Naturally, Sony told us, "We don't comment on rumors or speculation."

[Image: Not the real thing.]

MTV's Multiplayer had a chance to speak with Castlevania series director Koji Igarashi at last week's Konami Gamer's Night and asked the eccentric icon a question that's been on our minds: what's up with the series on Wii? More specifically, is he still set against using the Wiimote for some one-to-one whip waggling?

Whip in hand – seriously – he told the Multiplayer crew that he feels "cracking" the Wiimote is "going to get tiring after a while" but that he has "been thinking about different ways" to make a Castlevania work on Wii and sees Nintendo's hit console as "a viable platform, the more and more [he thinks] about it."

We'll look forward to the day Igarashi figures out a way for us to "whip it good" on the Wii, instead of bringing waggle to Castlevania just for the sake of it.

Johnny Lee is one of the most exciting innovators in the video game space right now; only thing is, Lee doesn't work in the video game space. He's a PhD candidate at Carnegie Mellon University (graduating this week, congrats!) and his projects have not only made their way around the entire internet, thanks to sites like YouTube, but it even landed Lee a spot presenting at the prestigious TED conference.

Our pals at Wii Fanboy caught up with Lee and picked his big brain on everything from head tracking getting pulled from Boom Blox ("it's actually a pretty complicated decision, and I don't know if I'm at liberty to explain exactly why"); Nintendo's reception of the technology ("I have been talking to some Wii game developers and they've said that ... if a game requires too much motion or requires ... too much movement on the player's part, Nintendo asks them to pull it."); and future projects ("Maybe next week or the week after that, I can push out another video."). Any guesses on what's next from Mr. Wiizard?

This video was released a couple of months ago, but if there's one thing we can't pass up it's a great sight gag. You have to respect a guy who would go through all the trouble of merging a Wiimote and a plastic AK-47 just so he could use the butt of the gun to smash the noses of the titular critters in Rayman Raving Rabbids.

What's more, the modder actually goes through the trouble of teaching you how to tie a shemagh to help increase the verisimilitude of your experience. What a value!

[Thanks, overflow]

Briefly previewed at GDC, LostWinds is a stylish, creative take on platforming. The Nunchuk analog stick moves your small character over obstacles from a side-view. But the the character can't jump or climb very high; he needs the wind to push him up and over pits.

The Wii Remote fills this role naturally. A pointer swipe and button push gusts the wind into the world, lifting the small character to higher plateaus. Even ambient background objects like trees and grasses sway with the breeze. Later puzzles require you to guide the wind into other objects, not just the small fellow.

These techniques feel fresh and the visuals rival other Wii games. LostWinds was one of my favorite experiences from the Nintendo Media Summit.

Each week Mark Methenitis contributes Law of the Game on Joystiq, a column on legal issues as they relate to video games:

Patents seem to be the intellectual property du jour for conflict in the video game world. After all, it was only a matter of time before the conflicts that have engulfed technology at large would spread to our little corner of the electronic world. However, patent law is not exactly a simple area of the law, and it's one that, like most of the other intellectual properties, is generally not well understood. Because of the complexity, someone mentioned it would be a good idea to give an overview of patent law and patent infringement. I should mention before I begin that I am not a patent attorney, meaning I haven't taken the patent bar, and so I wouldn't consider myself an expert on the subject. More importantly, this commentary applies to 'utility patents,' which is what most people mean when they simply say 'patent.'

To start from the most basic level, a patent is a type of intellectual property, like a copyright or a trademark. Patents, generally, protect ideas for a limited time (20 years in the US). The theory behind a patent is that someone who invents something should be able to profit from that product for some period of time before anyone can produce the item. So, for example, when a new pain reliever is patented, only the patent holder and those who have a license from the patent holder can produce the product until the patent expires. Once the patent has expired, then anyone can produce that product. In fact, this is the big catch with patenting: you have to expose the "formula" for the product, in detail, in the patent application, which becomes public record. Many companies opt to not patent items for this reason, keeping them as "trade secrets" instead. A well known example is the formula for Coca-Cola. While this overview may sound simple, there is much more to a patent.

MTV News has a secret source who sent in the above "sketch" and some info on what they claim is a veritable Wiimote clone, courtesy of your friends and ours at Microsoft. Reportedly, the Xbox (marketing?) team has been hard at work aping Nintendo's waggling wonder, in an attempt to "match the Wii point for point." The project, which the anonymous source calls "a colossal clusterf---," is being handled to some degree by internal developer Rare, who has had difficulty "hitting its deadlines," apparently compromising Microsoft's ambitions to have a product release by the end of the year. The more astute amongst you may recall that X3F broke the news about Rare's upcoming XBLA game The Fast and the Furriest in January, which purportedly features "a wand type input device for gesture recognition."

While not a huge surprise, considering the contortions Microsoft has put itself through to appeal to the "casual" audience, we're pretty certain releasing yet another interface for the Xbox 360 isn't going to accomplish much of anything outside of adding more delicious bullet points to the box (which SKU would this be?) and marginalizing any piece of software that required it. You're beautiful just the way you are, Xbox 360.

Fans of alternate Wii control schemes were obviously psyched when it was revealed that Mario Kart Wii would support a variety of control methods, including the Wii Classic Controller and Gamecube pad. But those fans might want to scale back their expectations, as an updated game fact sheet (posted on Nintendo's press site) claims that players who don't use the Wii Remote schemes will not be able to perform "certain moves" and "some maneuvers."

What maneuvers exactly? We're not quite sure, but the new mid-air tricks probably aren't among them -- A Link to the Future notes that an IGN preview specifically mentions Classic and Gamecube controller users can hit the d-pad to perform those. We find it hard to imagine that the plethora of joysticks and buttons on the alternate control schemes can't replicate the controls of the somewhat button-free design of the Wii Remote. Could this be an effort to encourage more use of the practically useless 'extremely useful' Wii Wheel? You'll know as soon as we do.

We like the way the U.S. military thinks. One of the Wii's biggest flaws is the painful stretches of downtime between its bigger releases, causing dust to settle on Nintendo's minuscule console and cobwebs to form on our Wiimotes. What better way to get more mileage out of our neglected gyroscopic peripherals than to use them to blow up actual bombs and landmines?

This must have been the thought process of those techno-wizards at iRobot, who have modified their Packbot model to be controlled by a standard Wii remote. It seems they discovered that Nintendo's motion-sensitive controller doesn't just lend itself to instinctive, natural interaction with games like Wii Tennis, but also with maneuvering rifle-mounted, explosive-detonating robots -- just remember to always use the wrist strap. Impaling a TV screen while hitting the Wii Bowling lanes is embarassing, throwing the reigns of a gun-toting war machine is just plain irresponsible.

Wii's 'Terebi no Tomo' Channel has launched in Japan, free for download from the Shop Channel. Better understood as 'TV Friend' Channel, the service, which was announced last November, provides users with an Electronic Program Guide (EPG) that updates over the internet from Japan's G-Guide service. While it might be a giant step backward for TiVo and DVR users, the new channel may be useful for elder Wii owners still stuck with ancient SD analog programming. EPG browsers can search by genre and keyword -- in 3D! -- and then 'stamp' programs of interest. These picks can then be shared with in-house users and coded Wii friends, and are used by Nintendo to give programs aggregated popularity scores. The service will also send out an alert to an email address specified during setup, 30 minutes prior to a stamped program's start time.

Additionally, while using the TV Friend Channel, the Wiimote will operate as a semi-functional universal remote, capable of changing channels, adjusting volume, and switching between the Wii and TV inputs. The 'hack' is accomplished with the sensor bar, which sends out an IR signal compatible with your display. The signal is bounced off a wall (or your head or whatever) and ideally lands on your TV's IR port. There's a faceless female voice that guides you through the IR calibration process via the Wiimote speaker (we knew it had a purpose!), just in case your screen goes dark ... and stays that way. Hey, it's free, remember?

[Via Engadget Japanese; thanks to Ittousai for translating!]

What's the only thing better than a plastic wheel attachment for your Wii remote? Plastic wheels for all your friends' remotes, of course! Unfortunately, each copy of Mario Kart Wii only comes with one of Nintendo's revolutionary necessary new Wii Wheels.

Japanese gamers shouldn't worry, though, as Famitsu (machine translation) reveals that Nintendo will be offering additional wheels for sales at the bargain price of 1200 yen (about $11). No word on whether Americans will get the same chance, but with the market for useless plastic attachments for the Wii remote being what it is, we imagine a similar deal will come stateside eventually.

[Via SiliconEra]

A wide majority of gamers don't have to worry about the logistics of actually interacting with their video games of choice -- the simplicity of picking up a controller and playing a game is the main draw of home consoles. However, gamers who suffer from certain physical handicaps are often not in the minds of console and controller designers, often excluding them with peripherals they may find difficult to use. Luckily, the Earth's got people like Ryan Culy.

Culy designed the pictured Wii Remote/Nunchuk hybrid with one of his friends, who had lost most of his left arm, in mind. By moving the C and Z buttons from the 'Chuk to the Wiimote, and by detaching the joystick and motion sensor so that they could be controlled by an elbow, the two peripherals can now be used with one arm. It's a very kind gesture from Culy -- one we hope will inspire future console and peripheral designers to keep gamers of all shapes and sizes in mind when they create their products.

React's Wii Recharge Dock isn't just a little bit late to the party but, at $50, it's a little pricier than some of the competition. But then we got to figuring that since it charges the four included 550 mAh batteries in four Wiimotes, not just two, the proportional value is clear. And considering the Wiimote is scientifically proven to eat batteries the way Mario downs mushrooms, some of you might consider a device such as this nothing short of a necessity, what with Brawl coming soon and all.