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Wiimote Straps Result in Class Action Suit
Kotaku reports the news that problems with breaking Wiimote straps has resulted in a class action lawsuit against Nintendo. From the press release about the suit: "Green Welling LLP filed a nationwide class action lawsuit on behalf of the owners of the Nintendo Wii against Nintendo of America, Inc., in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. The class action lawsuit arose as result of the defective nature of the Nintendo Wii. In particular, the Nintendo Wii game console includes a remote and a wrist strap for the remote. Owners of the Nintendo Wii reported that when they used the Nintendo remote and wrist strap, as instructed by the material that accompanied the Wii console, the wrist strap broke and caused the remote to leave the user's hand. Nintendo's failure to include a remote that is free from defects is in breach of Nintendo's own product warranty."
No where in the instructions does it say that you should ever let go of the remote. Honestly, if you can't hold onto the thing, maybe you should practice a little more self-restraint and control.
What's next? Does Nintendo have to include a helmet for the possibility that someone might hit themselves in the head?
-Grym
This is not legal advice: in the Federal Rules of Evidence, it is clearly stated that any attempt by a company to improve a product cannot and must not be admitted as evidence of a defect in the original design. Otherwise, products would never be improved (for fear of a resulting defect lawsuit).
"Stumble before you crawl"
The fact that they started using a newer version of the strap does not imply the old one was defective. Perhaps the old strap was perfectly suitable for normal use, as instructed in the manual (I don't know, I don't own a Wii). If Nintendo found that a larger subset of their users than first expected like swinging their wiimote much more vigorously than instructed, then updating the strap to be a little stronger to accommodate those users is a smart business decision (fewer complaints from users about weak straps is good for the product's image among that demographic).
No, they very specifically state that this is NOT a recall. They're replacing all NEW straps with the new one, but if you are really concerned about it, you can call and get a replacement, new one.
Simply put, the wrist strap is there in case you are silly enough to let go of the Wiimote during play, which you are NOT supposed to do.
My gut is telling me these charming lawsuits are coming from a group of people (Homo Sapiens Moronicus) who think they're actually supposed to throw the Wiimote as a baseball or bowling ball, and the strap is supposed to keep it from getting away from you.
This is NOT how you're supposed to actually use the darned thing, but hey, I guess this is the downside to bringing gaming to a wider audience. (That, and Nintendo daring to have a hugely successful holiday product).
McDonald's sold coffee at a temperature significantly higher than other restaurants, and had received seven hundred complaints of coffee burns over the preceding ten years. Despite the case's standing in popular culture, it really didn't go down like that. Though the woman was found partly responsible, the coffee was indeed defective as argued.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
You mean videos like this one, or maybe this one? All of the Wii straps I've seen break were from people trying to send the thing flying into orbit. That is simple abuse of the hardware.
From the article:
No where in the documentation does it say to let go of the remote. In the Wii Sports instruction booklet, on the Wii Tennis page, it says "Use gentle motion while playing". Throwing the thing hard enough to break a TV is not "gentle motion". These people are not using the Nintendo remote and wrist strap as instructed by the material that accompanied the Wii console. It's not the strap breaking that caused the remote to leave the user's hand, it's the user letting go of the remote that caused the strap to break.
I really hope that these people go to court and use the argument "that's what the documentation says", because it's exactly what the documentation says NOT TO DO. If you can't read the manual, and if you can't control yourself, it's not Nintendo's fault.
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
I'll cop out to this. This is how I broke my wrist strap. Playing baseball I was getting annoyed at how hard it was to get the ball to go above 70something mph. So I devised a clever(read:foreshadowing for dumb) technique of actually throwing the remote, and letting the wrist strap cause it to loop around my wrist afterwards. I'm proud to say I was then throwing in the mid to low 90s, but after about 3 or 4 times the wrist strap broke.
That's all that broke though, and I accept full blame for anything else that might have broken. People have to realize that it's not the company's fault that your kids started acting like kids and broke their new toy. Breaking stuff is what kids do.
"In the game of life, someone always has to lose. To me, if life were fair, that someone would always be Oklahoma." -DKR
No, I think this is just a simple case of many people NOT HAVING ANY CLUE what a 3rd degree burn is.
They know about as much about first aid as they do law and civics.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
They're not telling the truth if they're saying it's Nintendo's fault they let go of their remote.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them