Were you activating a Galaxy Nexus? So far as I know, pre-Ice Cream Sandwich Android releasesare also pre-Google+, so they don't prompt you for anything Google+-related during setup.
Not sure what he did, but i activated my Galaxy Nexus yesterday and it's pretty much the same procedure as with the Nexus One and other Stock Android ROMs..
It's only asking for your Google Account, and since that includes you G+ account there is no seperate "create/login with G+" in the setup procedure. Wouldn't even make sense..
