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U.S. Safety Commision 'Keeping an Eye' on the Wii

Posted by Zonk on from the watching-the-flying-wiimote dept.

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."

2 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Overboard by pembo13 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think people are _really_ going overboard with this entire things now. It's not as if the controllers are launching themselves. As nice/good as it is of Nintendo to replace the straps. This is just settings the bar lower for common sense. If your hand is sweaty, please dry it off for the sake of people around you. I'm curious as to how much tension the straps takes before breaking myself, and also how the replacement straps fair in that metric. But really, the controllers aren't supposed to be flying (or are games somehow requiring this?). Has anyone been able to actually damage the remote itself? It seems as if it is near indistructable.

    --
    "Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
  2. Re:Uh... what? by An+Anonymous+Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    From TFA:

    "She said that there are two ways in which the commission can get involved in a product safety issue. One is by discovering the problem on their own, either through consumer complaints or their own research, the other is by the company notifying them of an issue.

    In this case Nintendo contacted the commission and asked to fast track the solution, which involved offering to replace about 2 million Wii remote safety straps.

    Because Nintendo self-reported the issue, the commission will not do its own investigation unless new issues crop up with the new strap."

    So the Commision is only getting involved because Nintendo asked them to.