U.S. Safety Commision 'Keeping an Eye' on the Wii

In the wake of this past week's offer from Nintendo to replace our Wiimote straps, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission says they'll be keeping an eye on the situation in the future. For the time being they are satisfied with Nintendo's handling of the problem. Just the same, Kotaku reports that the organization wants to make sure there aren't a lot of subsequent 'flying Wiimote' incidents. From the article: "Because Nintendo self-reported the issue, the commission will not do its own investigation unless new issues crop up with the new strap. 'If the problem continues with the new strap that's where we might step in," she said. "We also would have to decide if it's a safety issue.' Vallese added that that means that if remotes were, for instance, smashing into a television hard enough to cause the tube to explode or somehow stop working in a dangerous way, it could also be deemed a safety issue."

Overboard

[pembo13]

I think people are _really_ going overboard with this entire things now. It's not as if the controllers are launching themselves. As nice/good as it is of Nintendo to replace the straps. This is just settings the bar lower for common sense. If your hand is sweaty, please dry it off for the sake of people around you. I'm curious as to how much tension the straps takes before breaking myself, and also how the replacement straps fair in that metric. But really, the controllers aren't supposed to be flying (or are games somehow requiring this?). Has anyone been able to actually damage the remote itself? It seems as if it is near indistructable.

Uh... what?

[RyoShin]

People get whacked in the head with golf clubs, tennis clubs, all sorts of stuff all the time. Safety Commision pays no heed.

People have thrown cellphones and remotes across the room in frusturation before. Safety Commision pays no heed.

Nintendo implements tool to keep device from being thrown across room. Nintendo then upgrades tool and offers replacement of 'inferior' version to try and keep accidents down. And now the Safety Commision is a bit concerned? For. Fucks. Sake.

Well

[Sv-Manowar]

It seems as if the talk about the Wiimote straps breaking is becoming almost as big news as the console itself, if you speak to anyone on internet gaming forums or offline who enjoys console gaming and you bring up the Wii, you will last about 5 minutes before someone tells you a story of how they know somebody who killed their TV/Cat/Sister with the Wiimote flying out of their hands. The BBC [bbc.co.uk] reported some advice from Nintendo and it seems like the last point adresses reason why most people are having this problem - "Do not use excessively rapid, violent or wide swinging motions during game play."

I'd dare say that over 80% of the reason for the breakages right now is because people have been booting up Wii Sports and taking on, say, the Golf game thinking they have a real seven iron in their hands. Of course people are going to pretend it's the real game while playing Baseball or Boxing and with these kind of multiplayer games, when your with a friend you will both pretty easily start going at it with more violent movements. Games such as red steel in the shooting part are unlikely to have that many breakages happen, but as soon as you get into the sword fighting parts people will start thinking they are one of the fourty-seven samurai and start throwing the controller around. It's good to see Nintendo are beefing up the wrist strap with the recall but I still think it's less about product failure and more about people not using common sense while playing - on the flipside of that it is a game console (with a target market of young people), so surely Nintendo should have expected people to get a bit over excited and be at least slightly prepared for this.

Suspect someone else is pushing here...

[advocate_one]

perhaps Microsoft or Sony? Who gains by all this news of Wii remotes smashing televisions then? perhaps some of these breakages are not true accidents? tin foil hat time

Re:Explode?

[PatrickThomson]

I can personally attest to the thin-ass screen on a 14" black and white monitor from goodness-knows-how-long-ago being quite resilient.

It came time to dispose of "ol greener", so I did the only sensible thing: put it face-up in a dustbin and dropped bricks on it. Took quite a few, and then the tube just cracked and slowly filled with air. A wiimote? please.

Excessive Force

[Kurayamino-X]

I've seen video of one guy breaking the straps on a Wiimote.
Be was pitching in baseball and threw the fucking controller.
You do not throw the fucking controller.

Aparrantly people seem to thing you have to put the same force behind your movements as if you were actually pitching or hitting or bowling or swinging a golf club. I'm starting to thing WiiSports was a really bad title to include with the console, maybe they should have gone with WiiPlay, I'm sure far fewer dickweeds would fling thier controller with enough force to break thier TV then.

It's not the strap that's broken, the strap is only meant to stop you from accidentally dropping it, it's the retards putting way too much force behind thier movements. Maybe if they used it without the strap they'd be more careful.

Re:My experience.

[Henry V .009]

What lesson did she learn? Stay away from Mom's boyfriend or get beaten? Good god, you dumb fuck, if you're playing with 5-year-olds, you're the one to be careful.

Best advertising money can buy!!

[Ingolfke]

This Wii issue is the best advertising money can buy. What's wrong with the product... it's so fun people of all ages (particularly adults, one of their target demographics) are actually breaking the strapp while playing. This doesn't affect the actual functionality of product... you have to be careful... but the games still play and the Wii itself doesn't break. So they'll send out some replacement straps, while the news media covers this story for days demonstrating how to use the Wii, how young and old are using it and having a great time. How you should excercise some restraint while you have all of that fun.

Not only overboard, but great press!

[gmezero]

This is awsome press coverage for Nintendo that they don't even have to pay for. "Oooh look, Nintendo is dangerous! The Governement is keeping their eye on them." It's almost always good to play the bad-boy card in the U.S. market. Consumers eat it up. :) Anyone who wasn't thinking about buying a Wii might think that they should check to see what all the fuss is about... and if it makes another sale, cha-ching!

Re:Make GLOV ES and Ankle straps

[tonyr1988]

No, Nintendo needs to do nothing else to change anything. I got my Wii a while ago, and there is not one instance in any game that requires you to get even close to letting go of the remote. I've played with different people, and sometimes we'll even go crazy with the remotes. It's fun to swing your "sword" like a complete nutjob in Zelda, or run back and forth hitting the ball in Tennis (although neither is necessary at all). You don't throw a sword in real-life, you don't let go of a tennis racket, you shouldn't be letting go of the remote. Even the sports where you would let go (bowling), you have to let go of a button, and I (nor anyone I've played with) have never once had a problem trying to let go of the remote itself.

The strap gives you a lot of slack between the remote and your wrist. There is never any stress on it while it's lax and just hanging there. The only time you'd stress the strap enough (even on the original) is if you've not only let go of the remote, but if it's going crazy fast.

It's definitely a user error, far from a design flaw. This is all complete nonsense.

Re:Overboard

[DaSH Alpha]

Yeah, I think they should be investigating the people who didn't develop very good motor skills in childhood instead. I've never even come close to releasing the controller from my hand, although I have come close a few times to hitting stuff around me (coffee table, cats) while playing bowling and tennis. But I'm not going to be a moron and blame Nintendo for my lack of proper attention.

EXACTLY.

[dolson]

That is exactly why people should NOT be letting go of the *video game controller.* Playing a bowling video game is not the same as playing bowling in real life. Not even close. So don't let go of the damn controller.

Re:Uh... what?

[HappySqurriel]

As a guess, I would say that it is a matter of scale ...

The Gamecube sold 12 Million systems in North America and I think it is pretty safe to assume the Wii will sell more than that...

If 1% of person-play-sessions result in a dropped controller and 1% of those are thrown with enough force to cause damage to a TV and if you assume 1-person-playsession/console-day you would get 1,200 Wiimotes thrown a day or about 420,000/year; if 1% of those caused an exploding TV you'd have 4,200 exploding TVs/year.

Do I think that the rate would be that high? No, but I think that is the reason they're investigating it ...

Re:My experience.

[LKM]

Wow, that got modded "funny"? If you really did "whack" a five year old on the back of her head "nearly as hard as [you] could," you should take her to a doctor, not make fun of it, even if she doesn't show any symptoms.

Re:My experience.

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you raised a five year old? If you took the kid to the doctor every time they hit their head or some other part of their body, that could be a hell of a lot of doctor visits! He didn't hit her with a baseball bat or punch her straight on - I think she'll be okay. And yes, the kid would be a wuss, too, if you took them to the doctor for every "booboo" they had. Talk about how to raise a hypochondriac.