What the Wiimote could have been

Sometimes, before diving into hacks, mods, and dissections, it's nice to know the humble beginnings of a device, and our sister site, Wii Fanboy, tips us off to scans of just that -- early Wii controller prototypes. While the bulk of them seem like reasonable, logical steps towards the Wiimote we all love (or love to sue), we have to wonder what meeting spawned that star controller. We would like to imagine that it was more game specific -- á la Donkey Konga -- than system specific, since this design would be a huge flop for day-to-day gaming. (Which is probably why it wasn't chosen.) But in all honesty, we could be convinced to rock a Nintendo Star-mote with slightly less resistance than to Sony's batarang concept.

[Via Wii Fanboy]

[bigassmuffin @ Dec 22nd 2006 7:06AM]

All of these look horrible except the one on the far left, which is like the wii we have not, but seriously, who the hell wants to hold up a star controller?

[Dae @ Dec 22nd 2006 7:11AM]

ok man. do you see that Power up Start remote? thats great. im not sure how to hold it so im sure it would have broken a few TV if that concept was push through production. The good thing about that design is that your dog might mistakenly take it for a Frisbee and return it back to

[NHAnimator @ Dec 22nd 2006 8:14AM]

When the Star-bellied children went out to play all,
could the Plain-bellies join in their game? Not at all!
You could only play ball if your bellies had stars,
and the Plain-bellied children had none upon thars.

[shmengie @ Dec 22nd 2006 9:06AM]

you guys have a sister site? would it be okay if i asked her out?

[Brian @ Dec 22nd 2006 9:55AM]

looks like a designer had one too many mushrooms

[tzhuge @ Dec 22nd 2006 10:10AM]

That star controller looks quite a bit like the DC controller. The DC controller wasn't really all that bad.

[Drew @ Dec 22nd 2006 1:07PM]

>That star controller looks quite a bit like the DC controller.
>The DC controller wasn't really all that bad.

I don't think you're looking at the right controller.

[NHAnimator @ Dec 22nd 2006 10:39AM]

Now that I get to thinking about it, if I were going to design a controller that people were going to physically throw, the star of the show would be the orange Frisbee-shaped one.

[v_dogg @ Dec 22nd 2006 11:14AM]

whatever happend to the silver ps3?

[Jeremy @ Dec 22nd 2006 1:57PM]

Looks like the star is probably an alternate sensor bar rather than a controller.

[some person @ Dec 22nd 2006 5:48PM]

oh come on! i could look at all of the prototypes on this page

[jster23 @ Dec 29th 2006 5:14PM]

Hey my uncle works at game stop and i was the first one to get the wii out of every one in the line for a preorder

so when i go home i will plug it in my 60inch tv and have some fun while every one is waiting in the cold.


P.S : Im only joking.....lol