I think potential is the best word I can use for this.
The wiimote had some potential that was incredible. For example, in one game (was it Red Steel?) there was an "assassination mode" where you only get points for targeting a certain player. But if that player could see your screen, they'd know to hide from you. So what would happen is your wii-mote would make a sound like a phone ringing, and you'd raise it to your ear and it would whisper to you which player to take out. When I learned this, I geeked all over the place. It was messy.
But, a series of games later, I realized they'd kinda hit the limits of the sensitivity of the accelerometers in the devices, because they rushed to market with the solution they had at the moment. Sure, the wii motion plus later added a lot of sensitivity and made the system more useful for the features they originally touted, but it still suffered from other problems, like tricky line of sight to the infra-red bar, and an abnormally low radius for bluetooth signal (not to mention the insane power consumption on the devices).
I'm cautiously optimistic about this new concept, and I say that because my caution has increased since the last gimmick they tried.
