Update.

Unconfirmed reports from various news sites have been circulating speculation that Nintendo is currently liaising with a number of tech companies to evaluate new accelerometer technology for the Wii Remote. 

The motion-control sensors in the Wii Remote are currently provided by Analog Devices Inc and STMicroelectronics, though a report from Nikkei business publication TechOn! claims that “Nintendo has been evaluating samples obtained from a number of acceleration sensor manufacturers other than ST and ADI.”

One such company Nintendo is said to be speaking to is US venture firm Kionix Inc, due to its “high reliability based on its past records of supplying sensors for hard disk devices,” according to a source reportedly close to the matter.

As said by certain figures in the Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) industry, a MEMS sensor is ideal; being “several times thicker than ADI's device, making it ‘easier to enhance sensitivity’”.

Edge has contacted Nintendo for comment.

The accelerometer chip inside the Wii was a milestone in affordable motion-sensitivity design. Before Nintendo exhibited the Wii Remote’s disruptive technology, accelerometer-enabled devices (such as airbag triggers) could only detect motion in two dimensions. 

Yet the efforts of STMicroelectronics’ Italian physicist Benedetto Vigna resulted in a breakthrough three-dimensional accelerometer panel design, one which Vigna claimed could detect a “flick of the wrist or a big movement of the arm” and could calculate “the displacement of fewer than 10 electrons”. Crucially for Vigna and STMicroelectronics, the design was cheap to build; priced at around $3 per unit when first introduced.

Still, complaints of maladroit motion-control in Wii Remotes have mounted since the Console’s 2006 release, with Nintendo even making a rare half-acknowledgement of the controller’s hang-ups when the firm introduced Wii Motion Plus; an upcoming add-on for the controller which looks very likely to make it more reliable. Quite how older games – which are modeled around the Wii Remote’s current properties – will work with either Wii Motion Plus (or the rumored internal tech upgrade) is up for debate.