This EE Times article is worth a read to get a temperature check on the current analyst community feelings on where motion sensing component (i.e., accelerometer) pricing is today and where it needs to be to become a mass market technology.

The article quotes analysts from ABI Research and Bourne Research on the topic:

ABI Research notes that MEMS accelerometer vendors such as Analog Devices Inc. (Norwood, Mass.) and STMicroelectronics NV (Geneva) cashed in on the success of the Wii and the iPhone. But “true mass-market traction” of the devices will only begin when individual unit prices fall below $1, ABI predicts.

ABI senior analyst Douglas McEuen forecasts that MEMS accelerometers will break the $1 barrier in 2010.

Bourne said unit prices on tri-axis accelerometers currently hover around $1.50 and are “pushing very hard” to cross the $1 threshold. “I do believe we are experiencing a slow integration of sensors into everything-with ’slow’ being the operative word,” she said.

We’d agree that this process (the integration of motion sensors into everyday items) isn’t going to be an overnight one… but for markets where the usefulness of the technology is pretty obvious (such as gaming) the move is happening pretty fast. Considering the number of $70 kid-oriented motion sensing gaming systems announced at the Toy Fair earlier this year, we’d argue that mainstream is here now.

Add to that software-only approaches like GestureTek’s and you can see that the barriers to integrating motion sensing are low and getting lower.