Internet reports suggest Microsoft is working on a Nintendo Wii-style controller for its Xbox 360 video game system.

According to the reports, users would be able to control on-screen actions in Xbox 360 games by physically moving the remote through a 3-D plane. That would create the possibility for, say, a tennis game in which players could control play by swinging their arms as though holding a racket.

That sort of interactivity has proven to be a highly popular feature of Nintendo's Wii gaming system, currently the only platform that supports such virtual play.

Microsoft officials weren't immediately available for comment. As a rule, the company doesn't respond to rumors.

MTV's Web site first reported Microsoft's supposed plans to develop a Wii-style controller. MTV posted a picture of what it said was a rough mock-up of the device. The music station cited as its source an anonymous individual who has "business relationships" with Microsoft.

If Microsoft does have such a plan in the works, it's remarkably similar to an April Fools' joke posted earlier this month on a Web site maintained by the company's Macintosh business unit.

Microsoft Mac BU bloggers said on April 1 that the company was developing software that would turn the Apple Remote into a Wii-style controller that would allow users to play interactive games on the Apple Macintosh platform.

"Picture swinging the Apple remote in your hand like a tennis racket or golf club," said Mac BU general manager Craig Eisler, on the blog. "Then imagine that controlling an actual tennis or golf game on your Mac."

Eisler said, apocryphally, that Microsoft also had planted a hidden game in PowerPoint 2008 for Mac that could be controlled with the Apple Remote. The game was called Prance Prance Devolution. Players could unlock the game by performing a tortuous series of button pushes on the Apple Remote, Eisler said.

Microsoft isn't saying whether it's actually developing a Wii-style remote for the Xbox 360. If not, the joke is on MTV.