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You're being far too vague. I don't think my car insurance would pay for damages if I used my car as a projectile in a strange, experimental game of darts. Obviously the car wasn't designed for this kind of use, but by your logic the car company should have been prepared for any and all uses beyond specifications.

That's somewhat unfair of me, despite your vagueness you're probably trying to make the point that Nintendo should have accounted for the fact that people were not necessarily going to use the Wii exactly as they should. That's a valid point, but that's exactly what they did.

The strap is there to account for a high probability Nintendo foresaw in flying Wiimotes. Being a more physically active console, and given that gamers already can get sweaty hands sitting almost comatose in front of a TV, the strap goes beyond "Used as designed" and accounts for gamers who will lose control of themselves and the Wiimote in the excitement of the game.

However, if you read Nintendo's statements regarding this you'll see that their testing did not predict the excessive amounts of force that some gamers have been putting into their pitches and swings. When I say excessive, I mean excessive because of the amount of duress it takes to break the strap. See this link for more detail.

Given the huge amount of force the original takes to break, I don't think we can really blame Nintendo for implementing a safety device that in all but the most extreme uses functions perfectly well.

Barring actual defects in some of the straps, I have to call this one for Nintendo.

I have had a Wii since launch day. It has 60+ hours of use already by myself (25 year old avid gamer), my 5 year old niece, my wife (loves her Monkey Ball), my 57 year old father-in-law, my 15 year old cousin, ect, ect, ect. Not once has the WiiMote left anyone's hands (even with some pretty freaking fast pitches!). Not once has their been a fear of damaging my generic 27" TV or my Cousin's 42" Plasma.

Everyone should also view this report:
http://www.nintendojo.com/fullfocus/view_item.php? 1166055790
If the default straps can take that, then people are just really dumb if they manage to break them.

Just in case this seems lop-sided, the Nintendo Wii has delays as well: the quirky but interesting title, Elebits, has been delayed about a month. Konami says the game is done, but Nintendo's Q&A process has held back the release.

I, too, can pull numbers out of my ass.

Can I play too???

There's a good article on nintendojo about how/why nintendo should keep the cost of Wii down.

Anyway, getting back to pulling numbers out of asses, I'm betting that Wii is going to perform well in Japan but they're going to have to go for sub $200 in the US where they face major competition from the 360 core. I think $179.99 is a good price point, with 200/£150 in Europe.

Think about it, there's no way the core is going to be at $300 this Christmas. If it sells at $250, and the Wii sells at $225, no casual gamer / parent is going to buy the Wii.

Personally I'm more interested in how much a second controller and the Zapper attachments are going to set me back.

I was looking over the list last night of the upcoming Wii games - "Trauma Center" should be interesting on the Wii (the DS version was pretty good, even if it had some annoyances).

Either way, it would appear that Nintendo has a lot of 3rd party support time time around, which made me think of why, and then something that Ubisoft president commented on made me figure it out.

Long story short, he made some less then flattering remarks about the PS3 - how it just ups the power. The same could be said for the 360. But that's no the issue for a publisher; for a publisher, all of that extra power and HD requirements goes into cost. Now, a development team needs even bigger hardware, a bigger graphics and sound team to get the same game out, which now increases the cost of the game by a large margin - say from $1 million to $7-$10 million. For a publisher, that means increased risk, reduced margins, and relying ever more on "certain" hits (which can vanish if something goes wrong - look at the Tomb Raider franches, and what they've had to do to get it back).

Nintendo is offering publishers something more than just a gimmick: they're offering them reduced price. Look at "Brain Age" - developed, tested, and ready for market in 90 days, and it hardly needed a graphics team. Since the Wii uses really Gamecube development systems with more power, that's an easy transfer of knowledge, which is why I predict that for the first year, Wii games will look pretty much like Gamecube games, maybe a little smoother.

But for the publisher, once you get past the controller issue, it's reduced cost, reduced time, reduced risk over time. If the Wii takes off at all, it may be that publishers wind up favoring it if for no other reason than it makes them more money over time.

Of course, this is all just my opinion, and I could be wrong. But my family is pretty much committed to the Wii - the only thing I need to know is how to get DVD functionality out of it and it'll be the only console in the play room for family computer gaming for quite some time.

Granted this is from a Nintendo fan-site, but the 360 is only beating out the GCN in terms of sales by ~700 units. At the same time it's being soundly trounced by the the Game Boy Micro, Game Boy SP, and is getting a very large beat down by the PS2.

http://www.nintendojo.com/editorials/view_item.php ?1145322602

Unfortunately, they don't say where the stats come from, but I'm sure they can easily be found on the net (I just can't remember what company usually reports the Japanese sales figures)

According to this article from Nintendojo, the Nintendo Power Line (number listed in article) says that the Revolution will be launched in the "latter half of 2006". While it certainly isn't unknown for phone service numbers to have bad information, this does line up with the article.

I think that, unless the PS3 gets a large headstart, the Revolution will probably be out late September-early October. Enough to drum up interest for Christmas, and will allow it to be available for Black Friday in the States.

Very good point. This last week, Nintendogs didn't even make it into the top ten in Japan. A Gundam game and a puzzle/quiz game did.
http://www.nintendojo.com/infocus/view_item.php?11 17771961

I read this article about some of the things that are being done by companies. Notably, the fact that companies have linked 32 handhelds together.

Another thing that piqued my interest is that internet browsing protocols (I'm assuming http and such) are in development. I can't really see the DS actually displaying regular web pages, but this opens up a whole new possibility: MMOARG- Massive Multiplayer Online Alternate Reality Games. ARGs just like the recently finished I Love Bees. Except these could be longer and have more to do outside.

Here's an example: You know that you have to meet with an agent of some spy organization to get a password to allow you into the enemy's internet organization. However, the spy is afraid of getting caught, and as such, does not stay in one place. Armed with a GPS device (or, hell, even one that plugs into the DS,) you wirelessly connect to a pre-designated website (or even something else that has a DS-only protocol) and use that to track the location of the spy, and try to locate him. You'll have other visual clues, of course. Once you do, he gives you a DS card (or even something you load onto the DS card in your system,) and you're off.

The more I hear about this device, the more I wish I had preordered one. Unfortunatly, I didn't have the funds. Hmm, I have a semi-regular paycheck now, and I've been wanting to go on a diet for a while...

Originally I was going to recommend Nintendojo.com, but after reading the latest dead brained article they came up with called "Nintendo Myopia" I instantly lost faith in them. I too wouldn't mind seeing some alternatives here as well.

I'm just wondering since your opinion seems to be somewhat askew from everyone else's.

According to this list:
Nintendojo

The combined sales of the two wonderswans is 700, where the Xbox is 650. The crystal and color wonderswan is the same except the crystal has better battery life and a nicer screen.

I can't find the original write up about it, but Tetrisphere on Nintendo 64 wasn't really a sphere at all, but a doughnut. I found an old article about it on Google, but it doesn't go into as much depth as the original one did:

http://www.n64cc.com/CCTET.HTM#Fun%20Glitch

The original article was on Nintendojo.com if anyone can find it...

'We have high hopes for the show and are confident the games will impress and astound attendees.'

One on more clairification: In the story it states, Nintendo at one point said that Dolphin would, but now wavers on the issue. in talking about online play. Well, in a recent interview Miyamoto has said that they are working on one and that,

"It would be a mistake to assume that just because we haven't announced anything, nothing exists, because that's not true. I think, particularly in the U.S., connectivity and online gaming is extremely important"

BTW, that link also lists some other stuff about the Dolphin that you might find interesting.

Some more links to various other sources
IGN64
Nintendojo
More Nintendojo
Nintendo

Some more links to various other sources
IGN64
Nintendojo
More Nintendojo
Nintendo