ne of Nintendo’s reveals at last week’s E3 was a new peripheral, the Wii MotionPlus. The gizmo, which snaps onto the base of the system’s remote, promises to give users more precise levels of control in games. The attachment will be bundled with the upcoming Wii Sports Resort, which also serves as a showcase of sorts for the peripheral. For example, players will be able to compete in a fencing-by-way-of-American-Gladiators duel, and their sword attacks and blocks are accurately rendered on screen. Another game has players hold the remote and nunchuk like a Jet Ski’s handlebars, and they get to drive through rings in the ocean.

After getting our hands on it, it’s clear that Wii MotionPlus delivers what it’s advertised as doing. Who’d be upset with such functionality? As it turns out, the answer to that question is developers.

We asked several third-party Wii developers about the Wii MotionPlus, and the general feeling was one of annoyance and betrayal. None of them said they had any advance notice about the peripheral, and we were told that they were as surprised as everyone else when Nintendo revealed its existence on stage. That lack of prior notice means that, aside from Nintendo’s own roster of games, users won’t likely see any support for the device for at least six to nine months. The developers we spoke to said they hadn’t received any information from Nintendo about how to implement Wii MotionPlus into their upcoming projects, and they also expressed doubt that they would be able to incorporate it into games that are currently deep in development.

What does this mean for consumers? It looks as though Nintendo’s making what could already be a tough sell even tougher. One of the Wii’s strengths is that it streamlines the process of getting into games. Imagine the confusion that gaming neophytes will face when they’re told they’ll have to buy an additional gizmo to make the controller function the way it says it does on the Wii’s box. Couple that with a limited selection of games—with little third-party support at first—and the waters get even murkier.