Slashdot Mirror
U.S. Safety Commision 'Keeping an Eye' on the Wii
In the wake of this past week's offer from Nintendo to replace our Wiimote straps, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission says they'll be keeping an eye on the situation in the future. For the time being they are satisfied with Nintendo's handling of the problem. Just the same, Kotaku reports that the organization wants to make sure there aren't a lot of subsequent 'flying Wiimote' incidents. From the article: "Because Nintendo self-reported the issue, the commission will not do its own investigation unless new issues crop up with the new strap. 'If the problem continues with the new strap that's where we might step in," she said. "We also would have to decide if it's a safety issue.' Vallese added that that means that if remotes were, for instance, smashing into a television hard enough to cause the tube to explode or somehow stop working in a dangerous way, it could also be deemed a safety issue."
Drop the American market. It's just a matter of time before some idiot uses a real bat on a controller, spreading plastic splinters all over his mates. "How would I supposed to know that a real bat would destroy the wiimote? Nintendo should make it impossible to throw the wiimote. They should pay me a gadzjillion dollars!" If Nintendo drops the american market, we here in Europe could get some ;)
Insert `fortune -o` here
I've had a Wii since launch. I've dropped the remote once or twice while playing (I think both times were while boxing. I'm terrible at the game, so I pretty much do the equivalent of button mashing, which is waving it around wildly). The strap held up just fine.
;-)
A more serious incident was when I was playing Baseball with my girlfriend's 5 year old daughter. She was pitching, and I was batting. She was standing almost directly in front of the TV as usual, and I was standing further back, near the wall so that I was out of reach of her. What happened was she pitched the ball, and then stepped back for some reason. I was taking a swing at the ball, and I was fairly focused on the TV. I heard a very satisfying CRACK! as the remote hit her head, and the bat hit the ball. I got a home run. She got a hurt head. And learned an important lesson about Wii safety. She hasn't done that again.
(Yeah, I know that I'm a bastard. But surprisingly, she wasn't that hurt, despite me whacking her in the back of the head nearly as hard as I could. (The battery cover flew off of the remote, but it was otherwise undamaged, and the battery cover didn't break))
...until they nuke their TV from orbit.
Its the only way to be sure, man.
Is it now...