Wii MotionPlus due June 8, Wii Sports Resort July 26

Nintendo's Balance Board accessory for the Wii has been tremendously successful, even though the company's software support for it has been mostly limited to the packed-in Wii Fit and a drum-training mode in Wii Music. Now the company is experimenting with even less support for its peripherals; it announced today that the Wii MotionPlus attachment would arrive on North American store shelves June 8--well in advance of the July 26 launch of the first Nintendo software to specifically support it, Wii Sports Resort.

Fortunately, gamers who pick up the $19.99 accessory will have a handful of third-party options that take advantage of the controller before then. Specifically, Electronic Arts' Wii versions of Grand Slam Tennis and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 are expected to arrive in stores on June 15 and 16, respectively, with the publisher heavily touting the games' Motion Plus features.

When Wii Sports Resort arrives in July, it will be bundled with one Motion Plus attachment for $49.99. The game's North American launch will be preceded by a June debut in Japan, where Nintendo has seen the Wii lose significant momentum as of late. Speaking to the press last week, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said that the Wii business was "unhealthy" in Japan, and implied that the country's consumers may be getting tired of the motion-sensing technology.

[UPDATE]: Customers who purchase the Wii MotionPlus on release day will have one compatible game option with which to put the peripheral through its paces. A Nintendo representative told GameSpot that Sega's Virtua Tennis 2009 for the Wii will incorporate Wii MotionPlus features when it arrives on May 19.