SydLexia.com - The Forums :: View topic - insan-wii-ty (damn THAT is clever)

Joined: Jun 29 2006 Location: tustin, ca Posts: 70

only a kick ass system can cause this kind of mayhem! Twisted Evil

Did Wii break your TV?
People aren't getting a grip on Nintendo's new system.
By Mike Smith
29 Nov 2006

Picture this. You're lining up the perfect shot in Wii Bowling, remote in hand. You set up the shot, swing the remote with all the strength you can muster, and... follow through a little more than you intended.

Somehow the remote leaves your sweaty-palmed grip and bang, smash, there goes your TV, window, photo of your granny, anything that happens to be in the path of the newly liberated remote.

Hold on, though. If you're wearing the (supplied) wrist strap, no harm done, right? So you'd think. As you can see, some Wii owners are finding the strap decidedly lacking. (Check out nascent site wiihaveaproblem.com for more strap malfunctions.) The problem isn't with the amply broad strap itself, but the considerably narrower section that connects the strap with the remote, which is prone to fray in some circumstances. The result is smashed remotes, smashed televisions, smashed windows, and unhappy (or, at least, somewhat red-faced) customers.

Teething hardware troubles are hardly new to the world of console launches, especially in the last year or so. The Xbox 360's original overheating issues are well documented, with the first production run of consoles suffering what is generally regarded to be an unusually high failure rate. We're even hearing the start of mutterings about overheating issues with some brand new PS3s. But it's probably the first time a console's design has lead --albeit indirectly -- to quite such a catalogue of destruction. To its credit, Nintendo appears to be happy to replace the wrist strap in some circumstances, but if there really is an underlying design weakness, then it needs to be addressed before an unfortunate (or worse, sue-happy) bystander gets beaned by a stray remote.

Sure, it's easy to laugh at the misfortune of these hapless Wii'ers, especially if you're still combing stores for miles around looking for yours. One broken strap could be regarded as misfortune, but as the volume of fractured straps grows, it starts to look more like carelessness -- or, at least, evidence of a lack of real-world testing.

In the meantime, wise Wii owners will want to consider hunting round the house for something a little stronger -- or waiting for one of the more opportunistic peripheral manufacturers to cash in on the opportunity to flog reinforced replacements at an inflated price. That's business.

Posted: Nov 30 2006 05:00 pm

Penny Arcade had the best response to the flying Wii controllers:

Posted: Nov 30 2006 06:52 pm

The only time I've ever had a controller slip out of my hands was when I was playing street fighter alpha 3, I was trying to do the hardest super ever at the perfect time, and I did it so hard that the controller launched up out of my hands and spun horizontally around, I had to catch it in mid air to keep playing. Thankfully the super did connect, so I had some time.

But people throwing wii remotes are just fucking idiots.

Posted: Nov 30 2006 08:08 pm

I've read up on this, and apparently people are relying too much on the wrist straps, which keep snapping. Here's a website trying to document all the accidents related to the Wii:

http://www.wiihaveaproblem.com

Just came across this one as well.

The Wiimote draws 1st blood!!!:
http://www.unclegamer.com/ug-news/cat/Nintendo%20Wii%20accidents/

Joined: Jun 29 2006 Location: tustin, ca Posts: 70

i smell a conspiracy...maybe it's just sony trying to spread bad rumors about the wii cause the ps3 is not nearly as sweet Shocked

Title: Nothing Special Joined: Oct 25 2006 Posts: 396

Thought:

"How'd the gerbil get up there, son?"

"To get the Wiimote out..."

"And how did the Wiimote get up there?"

"Tommy was trying to stab a monster on the TV and it slipped out of his hand..."

Posted: Nov 30 2006 11:09 pm

I really don't understand how a stray Wii controller can hit the TV with so much force, It breaks or cracks whatever screen is playing the game.

Are they major league pitchers or something?

Posted: Dec 01 2006 12:05 am

HDTV's are really flimsy. A friend of mine had his TV broken when his angry roommate tossed a fucking Dreamcast CD at it. That's right, a $2000 (at the time) TV was destroyed because someone was mad at a football game that was like 7 years old.

Joined: Jun 29 2006 Location: tustin, ca Posts: 70

Dr. Jeebus wrote:

HDTV's are really flimsy. A friend of mine had his TV broken when his angry roommate tossed a fucking Dreamcast CD at it. That's right, a $2000 (at the time) TV was destroyed because someone was mad at a football game that was like 7 years old.

i would beat the shit out of that friend

Posted: Dec 01 2006 02:52 am

The conversation in which it was revealed was fantastic. The guy came home to find a giant crack in his TV when he turned it on, then went outside and find the remains of a shattered Dreamcast controller in the trash. When he confronted the apartment mate he assumed did it, his response was "I dunno, I didn't see the TV break". It was later revealed he left the room after throwing the CD or something before it connected or some bullshit.

Posted: Dec 01 2006 04:37 am

It takes AGES to earn that much money for a TV...it takes SEGA to break it.

Posted: Dec 01 2006 12:37 pm

Well he did have a MASSIVE discount cause he worked at...somewhere that sold shit like that, maybe Best Buy, but it still wasn't cheap.

Posted: Dec 16 2006 01:13 am

Nintendo finally gave in and admitted the straps are not strong enough:

Redmond (WA) - In response to the reports last week that straps on the Wii remote were inadvertendly detaching from the controller, Nintendo today announced a voluntary recall for every Wii remote that has been shipped - more than 3.2 million.

The recall is not necessarily a sign that the straps were defective, but rather that they just were not strong enough to withstand extremely aggressive game play.

"People tended to get a bit excited, especially while playing Wii sports, and in some cases the control would come loose from their hands. The new strap will be almost twice as thick," said a Nintendo spokesperson.

The new straps are reported to have a diameter of 0.04", almost double that of the current controllers, which have a 0.024" diameter. The recall is expected to cost Nintendo millions of dollars, a critical hit as the company begins its battle in the three-way war over Sony and Microsoft.

Posted: Dec 16 2006 01:15 am

Meh. Recall, shmecall. My idiot siblings might've already chucked the wiimote, but I'm not gonna. (And their chucking had nothing to do with the wrist strap).

2010 SLF Tag Champ Joined: Jun 07 2006 Posts: 12294

Dr. Jeebus wrote:

Well he did have a MASSIVE discount cause he worked at...somewhere that sold shit like that, maybe Best Buy, but it still wasn't cheap.

sega is ages spelled backwards.

Banned Joined: Sep 13 2008 Posts: 3129

They were once sued over them. It happened about two years ago

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/newsArt.cfm?artid=17374

Joined: Dec 06 2007 Location: Connecticut Posts: 11244

hacker wrote:

They were once sued over them. It happened about two years ago

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/newsArt.cfm?artid=17374

A) This thread was 25 months old before this post.
B) The comment before you was not relevant to the topic, so without a proper noun in your first sentence, there is no way to understand what you are talking about.
C) The link you have shown is regarding a new lawsuit from 2008 not the one in 2006.
D) The link you provided is nearly a month old itself.
E) You did not close your second sentence with proper punctuation.

Posted: Jan 08 2009 07:51 pm

F) Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars.

Posted: Jan 08 2009 09:49 pm

In hacker's defense, I merged his post into the two year old thread we had on the topic.

Posted: Jan 08 2009 09:53 pm

G) The second worst ranking in Luigi's Mansion.

I don't know, with the wrist straps, especially the newer ones, you'd think that this wouldn't even have been an issue like a month ago.

2011 SNES Champ Joined: Dec 04 2006 Posts: 1929

Do they recommend to use the Wii jacket for that purpose, to get a better grip of the Wii remote? I never use it as it feels a bit awkward.

I don't see why people think they must swing their Wiimotes with all their might. Take Zelda, Link swings his sword all the time when I simply want to scratch my hands.

Posted: Jan 09 2009 07:23 am

I've never used the wrist strap or Wii jacket and have never even come close to throwing the remote. Like lavalarva said, there's no reason to shake the thing like a spaz, and unless you have downs syndrome and are covered in lard, there's no excuse for chucking the remote.

Joined: Jun 20 2008 Location: Michigan Posts: 802

Pandajuice wrote:

I've never used the wrist strap or Wii jacket and have never even come close to throwing the remote. Like lavalarva said, there's no reason to shake the thing like a spaz, and unless you have downs syndrome and are covered in lard, there's no excuse for chucking the remote.

I believe you have just officially jinxed yourself.

Posted: Jan 09 2009 10:19 am

I have never had any problems with the Wiimote slipping out of my hand and I never use the wrist straps. I was deathly afraid my little cousins were going to break the TV on Christmas though, the way they were whipping the remotes around while bowling.

Posted: Jan 15 2009 11:09 am

Quote:

Woman Kills Dog With Wii Remote, Neighbor Revives It
I saw this on Countdown with Keith Olbermann just now and figured I had to share it. A Michigan woman was playing Wii bowling with her daughter and accidentally hit her dog in the face -- killing it. A neighbor thankfully was able to revive the dog, though. A local news station did a report on the incident and spoke with the family. Here's that video:
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3172284 (couldnt get code to embed)
We should add this to our list of possible Wii injuries: Killing Dog.