Nintendo To Replace Wiimote Wrist Straps

Kotaku has word that, after much giggling and photo-taking, Nintendo is replacing all of the Wiimote straps shipped with the original release of the console. There is a strap replacement form available, to get new straps sent to you. From the article: "Once your replacement wrist strap has shipped, you will receive a confirmation email from Nintendo. We expect to begin shipping replacement straps around December 21st. It will take 5 to 9 days for delivery depending on your location. Please do not contact Nintendo regarding your replacement wrist strap until after that time period has passed. We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your interest in our products." Update: 12/15 17:07 GMT by Z : I used the right term here in the text, but Edge Online notes that recall is not the right term to use here. Title corrected.

Comments

Someone show this to Sony

[k_187]

This is how a company should react when they screw up.

Re:Someone show this to Sony

[AnswerIs42]

But it is not really a screwup.. the straps perform perfectly with normal use.. it is the "over excited" players that break their straps. And it is also not wide spread issues.. I have only found a few (under 50) confirmed cases of the strap breaking.. and every one of the cases.. the user was whipping and throwing their arm everywhere.

Though... Penny Arcade explained the reasons better... http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/11/29

Re:Someone show this to Sony

[Megane]

This is how a company should react when they screw up.

This isn't the first time they've done such a thing, nor the biggest. The Famicom recall of 1983 set a precedent, after which Microsoft's failure to promptly recall the Xbox when it had launch problems probably was what really cost themthe Japanese market. After that, recalling a bunch of piddly wrist straps that cost more to ship than they do to manufacture is nothing.

And in fact, this is how Japanese businesses typically behave in the Japanese market. Taking responsibility, sometimes more than they deserve blame for, and making it right, even if it means the president of the company has to go from Okinawa to Hokkaido and personally ring doorbells and apologize to everyone who was wronged.

Re:Someone show this to Sony

[MaWeiTao]

And in fact, this is how Japanese businesses typically behave in the Japanese market. Taking responsibility, sometimes more than they deserve blame for, and making it right, even if it means the president of the company has to go from Okinawa to Hokkaido and personally ring doorbells and apologize to everyone who was wronged.

No, this isn't how every Japanese business behaves. Many companies have covered up and denied problems, it's no different than Western companies. In fact, it's customary for companies there to cover up problems, quietly address them and release those fixes in subsequent models. Mitsubishi a few years ago was discovered to be covering up defects in their automobiles. I think one of their own veteran test drivers, who had been very loyal to the company ultimately helped to disclose these problems. There have been cases where people have gotten sick at restaurants and they offer a palty sum of money, not even enough to cover medical expenses. And, the last time I check Sony was a Japanese company and they've tried covering up countless problems and in fact have often failed to recall defective products.

If anything, it's easier for companies to get away with this in Japan than it is in the US because Japanese are a lot less likely to become vocal and try to fight a big company. They certianly don't engage in lawsuits like Americans do.

I do agree, however, that when someone is has been uncovered of wrongdoing they will openly apologize for it. In the US corporate management will deny everything and make excuses to the bitter end. In Japan they'll hold a press conference and make a direct apology to everyone, stating how they've shamed themselves, their family and their company. You'd never see that in the US. Then again, many Americans think money is the best form of apology and a CEO apologizing would be seen as an admission of guilt and thus paving the way for a lawsuit.

Re:Someone show this to Sony

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

But it is not really a screwup.. the straps perform perfectly with normal use.. it is the "over excited" players that break their straps. And it is also not wide spread issues.. I have only found a few (under 50) confirmed cases of the strap breaking.. and every one of the cases.. the user was whipping and throwing their arm everywhere.

I love Nintendo and I mostly agree with what you've said, but I do think Nintendo made a bit of a mis-step here. True, the owners are getting 'over excited' and they aren't using it correctly. I do feel, though, that Nintendo does share at least some of responsibility about it.

I don't imagine my opinion will be too popular, so I'll explain my thought process a little better. (Hopefully this'll prove at least that I'm not intentionally trying to troll.) I've been thinking about this a lot over the last week after being bombarded with pictures of broken TV's and black eyes. The first question I asked myself was: "How would I feel if this were Sony in Nintendo's shoes?" The answer is: "Geez, they're hyping up natural motion of the controller and it didn't occur to them to use thicker straps?!" I'm trying to be fair, I don't want to praise Nintendo for something I wouldn't forgive Sony for.

I think Nintendo should have included the thicker straps originally. But I have to be honest, this isn't exactly a big dramatic issue with me. If Nintendo had never responded to the breaking straps issue, I wouldn't have paid much attention to it. This is more of a 'hindsight is 20/20' thought than some opinion blown out of proportion.

Re:Someone show this to Sony

[AKAImBatman]

Sorry, but I'd consider 'whipping and throwing of arms' normal behavior.

Go watch this video, then tell me it's normal behavior. (Make sure you have the sound on so you can hear the heart-sinking WHAM!) Excited or not, I don't think anyone reasonably expected players to be trying to throw 100 MPH pitches!

Although, I find it interesting that every case of strap breakage has had only one outcome for the Wiimote: It still works! I mean, if you watch the video above, you'd think that it's in a million pieces after that. Nope, he picks it up and tries to throw another 100 MPH pitch. (!)

The reason for this simply gamer emulsion. Did Nintendo really think the players weren't going to 'GET INTO THE GAME', and possibly forget about doing damage to the Wiimote, or themselves?

Of course Nintendo realized that. That's why there are 3,462.70871 warnings about clearing your space, wearing the wrist strap, not using the Nunchuck for this game, etc. Nintendo just didn't expect people to throw with enough force to break their straps and send their Wiimotes crashing through thick panes of glass.

Re:Someone show this to Sony

[fistfullast33l]

I'll agree with you too. Nintendo might not have anticipated gamers getting really excited, but blaming players for having way too much fun playing games? Hello, it's a game. You want people to engage in physical activity, but not too much? The whole product has been billed as a way to break out of the static gaming environment of the past and into a more active setting, and yet they are surprised that people are excited and sweating and such?

I think that they have reacted properly but let's not place the blame on anyone here. Nintendo underestimated the response, gamers were excited and engaged, an unforseen problem happened, and Nintendo resolved it. End of story.

Re:Someone show this to Sony

[DeadMilkman]

What the heck are you talking about?

Nintendo ALWAYS does massive beta test, PUBLIC beta tests, Real world usage beta test.

There were all KINDS of wonderful secretive "get the word out" Wii parties going on. (part of the Wii ambassador program)

Here I'll link a few:
http://gonintendo.com/?p=6254
http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/top/secret-wii-partie s-start-in-september-194866.php
http://forums.nintendo.com/nintendo/board/message? board.id=General&message.id=38275
http://picturethis.clubmom.com/picture_this/2006/0 9/picture_nintend.html

Re:Someone show this to Sony

[HappySqurriel]

I'm going to wait for the announcement 2 months from the recall about gamers who's wrists are being injured because when they throw the Wiimote the strap doesn't brake and there is too much force put on their wrist.

Re:Someone show this to Sony

[Chris Burke]

Although, I find it interesting that every case of strap breakage has had only one outcome for the Wiimote: It still works! I mean, if you watch the video above, you'd think that it's in a million pieces after that. Nope, he picks it up and tries to throw another 100 MPH pitch. (!)

That's actually what I find the oddest about this situation. Nintendo has, historically, made extremely durable hardware. Much more durable than there is any sane justification for. I remember way back in the day a letter to Nintendo Power about a family who (somehow, accidentally) ran over their NES with a Lincoln Continental. They had to unscrew it and re-seat the casing so cartriges would fit, but then it worked just fine. Who on earth would expect that? Here you see someone throwing a controller full force directly into a wall, and it works just fine.

Hence I'm rather surprised that the wiimote strap wasn't over-engineered beyond what Nintendo expected people would do such that it would still manage quite well when abused in ways Nintendo hadn't imagined. If instead of videos of the wrist strap breaking, YouTube had videos of people hooking the strap over something and doing pullups on it, I would not have been surprised.

Given their history and engineering standards, it's quite possible that from Nintendo's persective they do consider this a failure on their part.

Re:Someone show this to Sony

[Thansal]

heh, I also rember that one.

Also a quick google for "gameboy iraq" will pull up a number of refferences to the gameboy that the Nintendo World Store in NYC has on display. The thing is fusedtogether after going through a bombing of a barak in desert storm. The awsome part is that it still plays tetris (sure, it needs an AC adapter, and some of the lines are dead, but it is still awsome :P)

Re:Someone show this to Sony

[Mattintosh]

With any luck, Nintendo will head that one off at the pass by releasing a neck strap instead.

PA got it right

[ack154]

I think this about sums it up.

Though no matter what the fault here, good for Nintendo to listen to the consumers and actually do something about it. Good PR, IMO.

not a recall

[Dance_Dance_Karnov]

This isn't a recall. This is for people too stupid to hold on to something while they swing it. The strap was designed to prevent people from dropping it, not to stop a remote traveling at 60+ MPH.

"As of Monday, anyone who has any problems or concerns about the integrity of their Wii Remote wrist straps can call Nintendo Customer Services for a replacement strap. This is not a product recall. The current wrist strap is fine - it has passed all safely standards and does the job. This is simply a precaution because we are aware of the concerns over their safety. All new Wii Remotes and Wii consoles will ship with the new, thicker wrist strap. Even though the original straps are perfectly adequate for normal play, we can't control the exuberance of players."

Re:not a recall

[justinbach]

This is for people too stupid to hold on to something while they swing it.

While I mostly agree with you about this (I'm the proud owner of a Wii and I have *never* accidentally let go of the wiimote), there's no question that it's a good move by Nintendo because the wii was designed to be played by lots of people. Like so many others, I've been astounded by how gaming n00bs have totally taken to the wii; my gf (who was certain that the wii would be the end of our relationship) now beats me at Wii Sports Golf regularly. Obviously, I've embraced how easy to pick up and play the wii is, and am happily amazed by how many people play it at parties and get really, really into it.

Having said that (and as much as I love watching people have fun with the new toy), I get really nervous about people getting so into it that they forget they're just playing a game, and I can't count the number of times that n00bs at my house have accidentally let go of the controller, while, say, power bowling. This weekend, a wrist strap finally snapped, and though the wiimote went flying, it thankfully missed the tv and bounced harmlessly off the wall.

Class act by Nintendo! Now I can revel in watching my stupid friends play Nintendo without freaking out on the inside about whether I'm about to end up like one of these guys!

Re:not a recall

[Chris Burke]

boss: did you test the strap to see if it could withstand the forces generated on it by a wiimote going 50+ mph?

strap guy: why would I? you aren't supposed to throw it, in fact there is a safety screen to that effect in every game, sometimes more than one.

case guy: I tested it. Case can withstand impact into cement wall when thrown by pro baseball pitcher. Both fastball and curve.

electronics guy: I also tested it. Accelerometers and PCB remain functional when experiencing forces like blow from karate master.

strap guy: Shut up, guys. You aren't helping me here.

boss: Hm, true, we have no reports of broken controllers, only straps. But we do have that warning screen right?

warning screen guy: Yes, but nobody reads warnings. Ask U.S. Surgeon General.

strap guy: Shut up!

That's basically the problem. As you can tell from the fact that even after being hurled at 50+ mph the wiimote still works, Nintendo usually has a very high standard of durability. It's unusual that Nintendo would let something like this slip. Especially when the entire purpose of the strap is to prevent the wiimote from flying off if someone accidentally lets go of it. If there was anything that should have been engineered beyond the expected limits, it's the safety strap.

I don't really think it's Nintendo's "fault", as in I don't think they are shipping a negligently shoddy product. I do expect more from Nintendo though. I do think their response is the correct one, and a classy one to boot.

just in time

[WormholeFiend]

My straps were starting to fray, and I was contemplating several ghetto-style solutions...

Alternate solution

[Mr. Sketch]

I have already implemented this solution so I should be safe.

You can't fix stupid

[MysticOne]

My wife and I got a Wii on launch day in the US, and haven't ever had a problem with the Wiimotes flying out of our hands. We've played some vigorous Wiisports sessions, lots of Zelda, Rayman, all sorts of stuff. The closest we ever came to a mishap was when I misjudged my position in relation to our ceiling fan, and smacked the light with the Wiimote. The strap isn't meant to keep the Wiimote from flying away when you throw it, but to prevent you from dropping the Wiimote. The people in all the videos, when they're actually wearing the straps, aren't casually letting go. They're throwing the fuckers as hard as they can. Personally, I think if you're stupid enough to do that, you probably need to just go without a Wiimote until you've learned your lesson.

Soooo unlucky....

[lurvdrum]

I'm just finding it hard to credit the number of people claiming that their wiimote "flew out of their hands and into the telly...". Maybe there's just an awful lot of people who really fancy a new telly off the insurance? No one seems to be complaining that "My wiimote flew off the strap and broke that nasty ornament over the fireplace I've always hated since the day my Aunt gave it to me".

Re:Soooo unlucky....

[joshetc]

I have the feeling the reason is because most people tend to face their TV when using their Wii rather than the fireplace.

Beat me to it. More kudos to Nintendo.

[WidescreenFreak]

You're absolutely correct. It's not Nintendo's fault that people are getting too emotionally involved with their games.

But this replacement is something else that makes Nintendo win kudos from me. Not only are they not playing the CPU/graphics/power marketing bullsh*t, they're actually going to take the time and financial expense of replacing items that as far as I'm concerned they are not responsible for replacing. They're taking the high road. In fact, they tower above those idiots at Sony. Remember their rootkit attitude? "If you don't know it's there, it shouldn't bother you. What's all the fuss about?"

Just because of things like this, I'll be more apt to pay for things like the virtual console instead of trying to hack it to play older games for free. Actions like this deserve loyalty and honest purchases.

Go Nintendo

[JayBlalock]

While I'm still not convinced this was really THEIR fault, once again Nintendo shows how hardware flaws SHOULD be handled. I've been a gamer since the NES, and without fail, no matter how poorly the company's been performing, they were always excellent about shipping out replacement parts - usually gratis! - when needed.

Plastic controller covers, Gameboy scratch-protector screens, cracked button in the N64 controller... I've never had to pay for a replacement bit. (whereas other companies would probably make me buy a new controller rather than send me a button) Just speaking from personal experience, but this is quite possibly the #1 reason I'm still a Nintendo fanboy after all these years.

I really feel like companies these days have forgotten the old adage about "you have to spend money to make money." When I was twelve years old, dropped my Gameboy, and cracked the plastic screen cover, they COULD have been jerks and made me pay ten bucks for it. But they didn't. They even swallowed the shipping charges. And then I bought a SNES... and an N64 (sigh)... and a Gamecube...

You get the idea.

Whereas every time I've needed something from Microsoft, it's been like pulling teeth and... (looks around) GEE! No X-Boxes here!

Customer loyalty isn't a myth.

These are simply cases of "dumb"

[GweeDo]

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.

Re:Beat me to it. More kudos to Nintendo.

[WidescreenFreak]

Not only are you completely wrong, the fact that you don't have the balls to post under your real user ID doesn't give you any credibility anyway. See, unlike those who think, "Hey, if I can get it for free, I should get it for free!", an idea that is somewhat prevalent on Slashdot, I firmly believe that the best way to keep a company that you appreciate in business is to -- horrors! -- actually buying from them is actually a good way to do that!

Imagine that.

My karma's fine, so I have no need for astroturfing. How's your karma? Oh, wait. You posted AC. Nevermind.

Re:Things you swing that don't have a strap...

[WillyMF1]

This is different. There are the nice TVs of a bunch of bloggers involved.

Re:"People are stupid" is not an excuse

[MosesJones]

So why don't baseball bats have straps? Or Tennis racquets? Or golf clubs? Or drumsticks?

You'd almost think that people managed to hang onto these things because letting go is stupid. IMO the problem is that Nintendo put straps on to stop accidental dropping they tried to be helpful and its backfired. The should have just removed the straps so people didn't think "hey this strap must be able to with stand me throwing it really hard, I mean I do that with my digital camera all the time don't I?"

These people are muppets, probably Gonzo.

In other news...

[EarwigTC]

I keep punching my crotch way harder than it's supposed to be punched, and it huurts. I would like Levis to send me some better jeans.

Re:What the Hell is going on here...

[Chris Burke]

Had this been Sony the post would have been 1,563 comments long with 95% of them saying, "Sony sucks and should burn in hell", "rootkit"!

Yeah, because if this had been Sony there wouldn't have been a recall, they would flat-out state that it is the customer's fault, and do nothing to fix the problem. Why would the rootkit come up? Well, what was their response?

The fact that Nintendo is fixing the problem -- in fact, already fixed it on newly shipped wiimotes, this recall only affects purchasers of the initial lots -- is the only reason they're getting a pass and some people are calling the wiimote-flingers dumb. If Nintendo was giving their customers the finger like Sony does, you would see a different reaction.

The reason you don't get it is because you think that everything is equal and you can ignore context. Nintendo and Sony are not the same company, and this is an example of why.

Board Meeting

[Wiarumas]

I can imagine Nintendo's board meeting...

"Wait.. so... people actually aren't capable of holding onto an object?"

"...yes... apparently the market we are selling to aren't the most physically capable beings."

*Sigh* "Ok... fine. Let's make it more durable so even people who aren't capable of holding onto something can play Wii."

Re:Beat me to it. More kudos to Nintendo.

[rucs_hack]

I regularly pay a little more for stuff I buy and get it from local retailers rather then online or cheap mega stores.

Reason being, in some shops I get a friendly hello when I walk in, and often stand and chat to shop owners that I have a decent relationship with. It costs more yes, but good relationships and customer service mean a lot to me.

Companies who look after their customers well are few and far between in the large corporate world, so if Nintendo are trying to do this, then I appreciate it.