It has been long rumored that Microsoft was fascinated by the simplicity of the Wii remote ever since last year.  Now MTV's video game news team has found out that Microsoft has been working on a new controller similar to the Wii remote since the middle of 2007.  In fact Microsoft's largest remaining game studio, Rare, has been working on the project and developing games to use this new device.

It seems that maybe we have not heard much about Microsoft's fall lineup because Microsoft plans to launch several games that utilize this new controller.  Since Rare is the developer in charge of creating the device I expect to see the new Banjo-Kazooie game to feature support for the new device.  There is talk that Halo/Fable/Forza versions will come out featuring support for the new controller as well.

So far the device will just be the remote and will not include a nunchuck attachment like the Wii remote.  Microsoft is hoping that by adding this new device more developers will be able to port their Wii games easier to the Xbox 360.  By excluding the nunchuck though I expect that only the easy to pickup casual games will be able to make that jump.

With this rumor coming out we may see Microsoft forced to show their hand a bit early.  It's rumored that Rare has been having difficulty meeting dates on the project and this might delay the reveal.  Still I think we will hear more about this at E3 if it is really going to happen.

Sources:
MTV
MTV - Sketch of prototype
Xbox 360 "Newton" Motion Sensing Controller Confirmed

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