The Wii Remote really kicked off prominent motion control in video games. Its reveal trailer showed off playing tennis, conducting music, and other activities that would have otherwise been abstracted away by button presses prior. The act of actually performing an action, as Isbister explains, is much more engaging and engrossing than simply acting it out via middle men, like action figures, or even standard controllers.
Unfortunately for the immediate longevity of motion controls, the technology was good enough to catch interest, but not good enough for some of the more advanced motions users expected to perform. The Wii MotionPlus was created to improve accuracy with the Wii Remote, and was used in games like Wii Sports Resort and Zelda: Skyward Sword to facilitate a greater level of immersion. This was met with mixed reviews — some liked the increased accuracy, others didn’t enjoy waggling their arms and calling it swordplay. The level of immersion wasn’t there.
Fast forward a bit — the Kinect, Playstation Move, and the Wii U all offer the market more varied methods of motion control. They all have some successes and some failures, as the tech isn’t really clicking with a lot of people long term, but then comes along Virtual Reality. As the need for highly accurate motion tracking came about, motion controls were given new life. The HTC Vive’s wand controllers and now the Oculus Touch controllers are highly accurate, very versatile motion controllers that, when paired with quality VR, actually provide that sense of engagement one would expect from immersing oneself into a virtual world. The technology had finally reached the point where it could be as engaging as say, mock sword fighting. As the technology gets cheaper and more broadly accessible, we may see a whole new era of unique experiences that will offer us never before seen ways of interacting with each other.