By all accounts Wii Sports Resort will not be replacing its predecessor in Wii hardware boxes. That’s the word from a high-ranking Nintendo exec this morning.

The reasoning behind this decision is explained by Nintendo Canada’s Matt Ryan, who tells torontothumbs.com:

“What is in the Wii box will remain the same. Wii Sports Resort will not replace Wii Sports. The intention with Wii Sports was to provide an out of the box experience for consumers and we want new consumers and non-owners to experience that just as everybody else has.”

“Wii Sports Resort is a different experience because while Wii Sports was designed to show off what the Wii Remote can do – the funny thing is it’s intended to be a demonstration but that is some peoples’ favourite game for Wii and that’s great – Wii Sports Resort is a more robust experience. There’s way more activities, there’s way more to do, and it’s more full-on software that you’re used to purchasing at retail at that price point.”

Hmm, there you go – Wii Sports Resort is just too big, too good and too expensive to be giving away free with the Wii. We guess we can accept that, even if we are a tad disappointed.

Elsewhere Ryan confirms that Nintendo has no plans to bring any new MotionPlus-enhanced games to market this year, and that the tech will not become standard for all Wii games simply because they don’t all require such precise controls. Longer term, though, the future is definitely bright for the peripheral, with third parties increasingly getting involved and Nintendo themselves “putting out a lot more games” that use it. Well, that’s nice to know, eh!