While we initially felt Wal-Mart was being a bit old fashioned by not allowing Wii demo kiosks to be setup in stores due to "
safety concerns," Walton and friends apparently had a good bit of foresight that we weren't aware of. After
numerous reports of television sets getting the
axe, and an innocently bystanding HP iPAQ
getting all cracked up, we're wondering if folks aren't just staging their own Wiincidents at this point. Apparently
warning everyone of how jeopardous these free-flying
Wiimotes can be wasn't really taken to heart, as now a butterfingered gamer has quite an interesting tale to tell to the presumably skeptical insurance adjuster. While busting a few moves in Wii Sports, the nonsensical user let the controller fly, but instead of landing softly (and harmlessly) on the couch, it rocketed straight through his window, leaving a fairly dangerous scene as proof of gaming negligence. C'mon folks, we've warned you all enough by now, either strap on that thoughtfully included wrist strap, grab some
sticky gloves, or tape up the windows -- your property, your call.
[Thanks, Sean]
posted November 27th 2006 10:15AM
Solution... two words: "Wii-mote Implant"
THATS THREE WORDS DUDE. TWO WOR5DS WOULD BE :WIIMOTE IMPLANT. LEARN TO SPELL
Wow :)
At what point is Nintendo responsible for the stupidity of the people waving these things around like idiots. I have yet to play with an wii (God that sounds wrong.) but just sitting here going over what it would take to actually do damage to a TV (Assuming 6-8 feet away from it.) a PDA, or even a window. You would have to be swinging the thing around like someone hit with an epileptic seizure, on crack, drinking jolt. I'd say 10/90% is the Nintendo to owner ratio of responsibility here. Nintendo's biggest problem was that they didn't hire morons to test the wii before they shipped it.
GET A PSP WRIST LANYARD THEY ARE DURABLE!!!! I HAVE SWUNG MY PSP AROUND BY ITS LANYARD HUNDREDS OF TIMES WITHOUT IT FLYING AWAY!!!
Really though the psp LANYARD is super heavy duty NYLON strap not some PLASTIC STRING like the WIIMOTES strap(if you could call it a strap). Better yet why not get a real console like the ps3 or ps2 or psp. All those beat the wii.
Why are you such a bully? Do you enjoy watching Timmah cry?
If I were Nintendo, I'd use these fools in a commercial to advertise the realism of their games!
On the same note, if I were McDonalds I'd also use the fat guy who sued them because their food was "addicting" in a commercial.
I should work in marketing. I'd make millions.
A few ways to keep the Wiimote from flying out of your hand:
- squeeze a stress ball to bulk up your hand muscles
- duct tape
- vicegrip
- contact cement
- c-clamp
- nail gun
- screws
Feel free to add your own.
Calling these Wii-remote throwing fools "retards" is an insult to retarded people everywhere.
This is probably the most exercise some of these geeks have gotten in years, so maybe they're just being total spaz-cases flinging the remote all over the place. Keep these folks out of the kitchen and away from sharp knives. Just hold onto the thing for crying out loud. Silly.
if the strap is crappy then the fault is lessened to the idiots swinging them
my question is why is that dude sticking his hand through broken glass??
Was he that heartbroken about his Wii that he had to slice his wrist immediately
It seems to me that the stupidest thing about this is a photo of some moron sticking their hand through a hole in a large pane of glass that is just waiting to fail and guillotine their arm off...
And an apparently single-pane window? Ever heard of insulation?
This is stupid. I had a decent sized party at my house on Friday (~50 people), and all of us were imbibing in alcoholic refreshments. Throughout the course of the night the wii did not get shut off, and 4 people were always simultaneously playing. Now, if the wiimotes had serious problems, I think the likelihood of one of the 40 or so people who were playing it, while drunk, would have been way more likely to bustificate something then the average user. I think it is more about user stupidity then any inherent flaw with the remote.
I'm sure someone has thought of this before me, but I haven't seen anyone post it yet. Come this afternoon, I will supplement my Wii remote strap with a cable tie.
I think the first one will fit the bill perfectly, but I might go for the third one, depending on the flexibility:
http://www.tach-it.com/Cable-Tie-Picture.jpg
We finally got our Wii on Sunday. I had been reading about all of these "breaking" straps, so just to be on the safe side, I re-enforced the original little string with a heavy duty nylon one. My wife and I have never even come close to tossing the remote. You have to be really flinging the arms (or be incredibly weak) not to be able to hold on to these things. Call of Duty, Monkey Ball, Zelda, Wii Sports all played with no incidents of projectile remotes. My guess is that over excitement plus not wearing the strap in the first place has caused most of the damage.
Granted the original string attaching the strap to the remote does NOT look very strong. I told everyone in line around me at Best Buy waiting for their Wii's to be aware of that. After actually playing though, I would find it difficult to rocket the remote through a TV or wall. Maybe I just don't flail as much as some gamers ;)
Anyone trying to blame Nintendo or anyone besides themselves for this kind of dumb shit should be shot. In the face. Twice.
It's not hard to hold on to the remote. Even drunk. You'd have to be like the guy in Benchwarmers that always throws the bat.
On that note... Possible solution: tape the remote and nunchuck to your hands.
If the insurance company actually COVERS this then they will have to start raising their rates! I doubt an insurance company would cover it of you tossed a brick through your own window.
I also do not understand why people are flinging their arms soo hard! You do not need POWER to use the controller, just movement!
I wonder how long it will take before some LOOSER decides that it is time to sue Nintendo for making them excerise while playing games. "Your new Wii system caused serious muscle strain!!!!"
Yay, I finally got my hands on a Wii long enough to play it well. Over T-day weekend my little bro brought his down to my uncle's in NY and my cousins ther had one of their own, so we had 3 remotes to get in some good 3-on-3 fun with the (surprisingly not bad) Rayman game and the included Wii sports demo. Although my bad back didn't give me much standing time, it only took me a few plays of each sport and the Rayman game before realizing that you really don't need a lot of force to play the games. Smooth, even swings worked just fine. Whipping it around like a spaz (or as Penny-Arcade would say, a toolbox), does nothing to improve play or scores. These broken TV's, windows, and anything else that might get clobbered, are absolutely NO fault of Nintendo's. It would be like suing Louisville Slugger because the bat slipped out of your hands while playing baseball and clocked the batter on deck.
Even if you're playing one those games like the ones in Rayman that require you to jerk both controllers up and down as furiously as possible. If I somehow let go of the controller and the wrist strap broke and it hit something fragile, I'd still feel like a complete retard. If anything I'd sue, who is it, Ubisoft that makes Rayman? Or at least produces it? Yeah, for making a game that actually encourages you to twitch faster than a OD'ing crystal meth head. Luckily I won those games through shear virtue of a lifetime of excessive crack, er, I mean energy drinks. But I didn't let the controller go! :-P
I am trying to look for instances of Wiimote-related injuries in other countries like Japan. Has anyone heard from the Japanese? It looks like most of the stories come from the US.
It seems to me that most of the news about Wiimote injuries come from the US. What about news from Japan? Have they experienced any wiimote related injuries lately?
This past weekend I was actually lucky enough to witness a strap break, mere hours after declaring bullshit on all the broken strap reports. I even went so far as to tug repeatedly on my own strap, demonstrating that there's no way you'd put enough force on it during normal gameplay. Turns out my definition of "normal" is not shared by all.
A friend was playing Wii Sports Baseball and getting a little too into it. He took a big swing and the wiimote flew straight into the wall (missing the tv and a window by about a foot), popping off the back cover and sending one of the batteries flying. The strap, still firmly attached to said friend's wrist, looked a lot like some of the pictures that I've seen here on engadget, but one side of it had frayed and something that looked like fishing line inside of it was exposed. The wiimote itself was in perfect condition. I didn't examine it too closely, but I didn't see a scratch on it, and upon putting the battery back in it just took a quick resync to get it working perfectly again.
It's definitely not the most dramatic incident report considering nothing was smashed, scratched, dented, or otherwise deformed, but it's at least one that I know for sure is true. The best part: not a single person present, including the offender, had any doubt that it was pure user error. His hands were sweaty, he swung way harder than he knew was necessary, and it just got away from him.
So there you go. Keep yourself and your friends in check, make sure everyone plays relaxed, and everything will be fine.
99% of the population has an average I.Q. of 117, 90% of the 99% has an I.Q. of 90 and below, Forest Gump character had an I.Q. of 70, It means 90 out of 100 people you meet are "Gumpish" we all seem to be surprised when people do "Stupid" things, Statistically its to be expected, we all would like to believe that 90% of people are smart but thats just not true. Everywhere I go there is someone doing something stupid, on TV or on the road, its everywhere. The only ones who dont know this are the "Stupid" people. I know its not "politically correct" and many of you will be upset by my statement, but it will not change the truth of it all.
Unless the tv is in front of the window (or within several feet), I have trouble believing a wiimote heads for the window instead of the tv, since that is where you usually aim.
I have seen so many post on this Engadget site of people doing questionable things?, from destroying PS3 to just making "As#%#" of themselves, sometimes it's funny, but most of the time it's depressing that we are all in this day not to show ourselves in a better light, Maybe this is the sign of the future and we have to get use to it, from not too smart tech gear to world events, I know we can look at the glass half empty or half full, if only it was half?, its not!, it's only 1% full and 90% empty and 9% average as its always been, so lets not all be surprised by what people do, I have seen people return tech gear to the store they purchased from because they destroyed or got harmed by their "Stupidity" not by the gear they were using, I have story after story that I could tell you and most I will admit they are funny but it is at the cost of "Stupidity". We are not creatures of the Obvious that is why most of the post here dont make any sense, only a small percentage, the rest we either ignore or debate online with the Low I.Q. individual as we make the mistake that we can change there mind or enlighten them in some way.
People who throw the Wii remote into windows or their head, they do it for the only reason that makes sense, They are clumsy or stupid or both, lets be honest, Anyone who is not stupid or clumsy has a little to no chance of this occurring.
give up Nintendo fanboys...geezz too many reports for it to be a coincidence and too many reports for it to be minor problem/special cases. Nintendo is a cheap piece of equipemnt made from cheap material.
I give it that it was a good idea with the motion sensing but only goes so far... I'd rather save my $250 and not risk smashing my $2000 TV/ window/ getting arm, wrist injured (btw i play tennis and badminton). It can be very easy to damage your joints if there is no weight to a rackets, its the same as over swinging or missing the ball but in the Wii's case..your doing it EVERY time...
How many people here agree that most are stupid, and that is the only reason why things like this happen?.
Even if the insurance company does find Nintendo to be at fault, they still won't cover it! Why?
Insurance never covers acts of God!
(This message was brought to you by The Wights who say "Wii!")
General rule of thumb should be: Do not do anything with the Wii controller that you would not do with the thing it is supposed to emulate. For example, would you do a full swing and let go with an actual bowling ball in your house while facing the television? Probably not. So don't do it with a Wii controller. That's how freaking realistic the virtual experience is. And it's true, the Wii controller is pretty sensitive so you don't have to make such exaggerated movements. I don't think any of these poor saps should get anything for their grief, except maybe a giant remedial lesson in STFU. If I attempt to hang a chandelier using silly putty, obviously only one outcome can be expected. The same thing if you chuck a Wii controller, or ANY plastic object of similar size and weight, with full force.
Personally, pure embarassment and fear of looking like a stupid swinging monkey in my home would prevent such a thing from ever happening.
So why is it that when something happens to Sony, it's totally their fault, but the mighty Wii is innocent of selling a piece of crap? engadget is the Fox News of the gaming community.
can anyone say "mythbusters"? i think im going to email them with these wii mote accident pages and ask them to try it out :D
can anyone say "mythbusters"? someone should email them and tell them about this and they should try it themselves :P
If an insurance company sees you claiming something as cheap as a glass window, they consider you an uneducated insurance risk and expect you to claim lots of other stuff... and they will raise your premiums.
Insurance may cover the little stuff, but only use it for the big stuff - the stuff you can't afford on your own. (And never let those guys who come up to you and repair your windshield chips for "free" and bill it to your insurance company near your windshield. That gets you flagged as an "insurance risk" and will raise your premiums)
I guess if these people could hold onto anything they'd be out playing real sports.
What baffles me is that this kind of people are complaining to Nintendo too. It's like blaming the games for the screw up your child come out to be. I can see the future, where wii remote accessories come out to "protect your tv" and crap and people spend 30 bucks on straps you can make at home. And seriously, if you make your drunk friend play assume the consequences that you may end up with broken things.
I swear I started saying the phrase "people are stupid" as a joke, but I've been meaning it more and more lately, it's dissapointing (and scary).
This is retarded, you dont even need to swing the remote in order for it to work. A quick flick of the wrist does the same as swinging it as hard as you can. If people are dumb enough to ruin $40-60 worth of gaming material by using it wrong, then they can go ahead. The wrist straps arent faulty, people just have anger issues.
i don't understand. why do people want a video of the straps breaking? what are the chances of an accidental snapped strap caught on camera? if i do see a video out there, it's probably a fake.
I think it's a plausible situation after this not being an isolated incident.i think Nintendo should educate players more in their manuals to use less force, and maybe reinforce the strap.(though highly unlikely) i can imagine holding on to such a smooth controller with sweaty hands. very dangerous. getting the grip skin is a great idea.