Last night I borrowed a colleagues Bluetooth dongle and connected my Nintendo Wii Remote to the PC's in my house.   And let me just say - it's pretty sweet.

The process was surprisingly simple.  Install your Bluetooth dongle (it's recommended to run BlueSoleil over the default windows drivers), connect the Wii Remote (pressing the "1" and "2" buttons then searching for bluetooth devices) then download and install GlovePie and you're pretty much done.

GlovePie allows you map input from the Wiimote into commands that can be used with software, such as mouse movement and keyboard buttons.  Since different applications would need to be controlled differently you load scripts called PIE files for different tasks.  You could write these yourself - the language doesn't look that complicated.

I didn't get to invest much time into really working these scripts.

I tested using the Wii remote with the Wii sensor bar to control the mouse on my laptop.  If you've heard this isn't possible you are incorrect - it's achievable with a script only 4 lines long .  Most of the video I've seen on Youtube show moving the mouse by tilting the remote, but if you have an IR source you can definitely move the mouse cursor around just like you can on the Wii console.

This script to move the mouse around requires some tweaking though.   PC's are significantly higher resolution than a Wii, and I found the mouse would quiver a lot, making it difficult to click on icons and links.  It should be pretty easy to write a script that samples the X Y coordinates from the Wii remote and average them to create a smoother mouse movement.  But I guess it also depends on the resolution of the Pixart sensor.

And for some real fun I tested it in Need For Speed: Most Wanted.  I loaded a pre-written Need For Speed PIE script that came with the GlovePie and went for a quick spin.  The script wasn't very nice, requiring you to manually tweak some variables to centre the Wii remote.  But once this was done it worked pretty well in game.  Pretty well, but not nearly well enough to actually play seriously with. 

Tilting the Wii remote from left to right, like you do in Excite Truck, created very smooth stearing but it wasn't nearly responsive enough to use for real gaming - I was constantly running into walls.  But again, I think you could tweak the script to make it more responsive.

So I'll be buying a Bluetooth USB dongle this week, if only so I can easily control my laptop whilst it's plugged into the TV, from the comfort of my couch.  Businesses could use the same technique for controlling Powerpoint presentations and the set up would only cost around $100.

But I'm curious to know what Nintendo thinks of people using it's unique controller with PCs.  It won't be long until we have scripts that allow you to control PC games as smoothly as controlling Wii games.  Whilst nobody has yet nailed the controls for a FPS on the Wii, it's not going to be long before Halflife 2 becomes the best Wii shooter even though it's on PC.

It's also going to make PC emulation far more tempting than the Wii Virtual Console.  There are already scripts for using the Wii remote motion sensing capabilties to control emulated games like Mario Kart and Zelda: Ocarina of Time (with the nun-chuck attachment).   Perhaps Nintendo should allow people to load scripts into the Wii so you can do the same.  I would love to have the IR tracking of the Wii remote mapped to the analogue stick for Killer 7.  That would make aiming far more fun, not to mention easier.

It also makes me wonder why some developers have had trouble implementing aiming with games like Red Steel.  The information coming from the Wii remote is very basic, just X Y coordinates for the IR, which should make configuring good FPS controls a breeze and easily configured by an in-game menu.

Even if you don't own a Wii console, I would be buying a Wii remote to try this out.