I saw the site, thought it was funny, figured most people either didn't wear the strap or didn't hold on very well. Just yesterday, my friend was swinging the bat in baseball, and now I get to figure out what to do about the TV.

I am blessed that my hands don't get that sweaty, but I can see how lack of gripping points on the wii-mote and sweaty hands, would equate to it slipping out. It makes me sad that the "safety device" failed on the wii-motes first slip.

I read on a different site, adding some fishing wire to compliment the existing strap attachment. Sounds great to me and I will be doing that.

A few comments:
A) Is the poll inaccurate? Possibly, I know I wouldn't have found a site to post my story if I didn't have a story. So I hope that this post will save someone's equipment. Although there may be many other invalidities with the counts as well, but if it gets your attention then maybe you will heed the warning.

B) Could people play less "aggressively"? I think I have a lot more fun swinging my raquet around playing tennis, then my girlfriend sitting on the couch flicking her wrist. Part of the experience is getting into the game, so exerting force is necessary for some to imagine they are hitting a home run, throwing fastball, or from your game of choice may be.

C) Someone asked about the strap. It looks like a cloth/string surrounding a plastic "wire." Like the plastic wires that attach tags onto clothing. Of course it would probably look the same if it were a stronger fishing wire to me, but it apparently isn't as strong.

darkil

...and 99% of statistics are made up. For those of us genuinely concerned:

Zip Ties. I finally found a use for a durable piece of plastic that's practically impossible to f'n remove on purpose. The actual plastic bit on the wiimote is more likely to break than the damn zip tie. It's not too ugly and it's very secure, and actually looks alright in conjunction with a black wii glove. If this ends up bloodying another TV, it's going out the window.

UltraMagnus

Then the chains will break! What will they think of next?! D:

nini

Thx for the suggestion! I guess I didn't think of everything. lol~ Will try that in a little bit!

nini

24% of those who responded positively to poll options that included deriding the poll's subject divided by 1/4 times 2 divided by half of the pennies in a dollar equals DELICIOUS DIGG HITS ZOMG

It's down to 4% now, probably due to backlash from Nintendo fans who, like many of the respondents in the first place, may or may not own or have any experience with the device in question.

Delicious, incontrovertible science. Thank you, Kotaku.

While we're showcasing the retardation out there in videogame land, why don't we have a poll on how many PLAYSTATION3s have had their fan go psycho and nearly cause a fire?

I mean, Crecente wrote an article about that happening too, so it must be a fucking epidemic.

ferroptic

i prob will get a wii-mote skin/glove to add a bit more grip but i prob will put the lanyard back on when we do a 'wii drink' nite.

also, the reason why most peoples remote lanyards are breaking is prob because tey are using the nunchuck and in turn fraying the cord by taking it off/on the look from teh nunchuk connector.

seamonkey420

http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/5843/newwiistrapik8.jpg...

Dree

TemplaerDude

This is like those idiots that forced Winnebago to re-write their manual entry on cruise-control because they would set the vehicle to cruise, then go in the back to make a sandwich.

Am I the only one that weeps for the future?

r1nce

Do they need to look into the strap issue? I'd wager they should. Is it necessarily their fault that people are yabos that can't swing a remote without breaking something (relatively) expensive? Not hardly.

Also - Crecente, it's time to go back to high school. Your math is terrible. The headline reports 24% failure, when the article itself reports 24% of people losing grip and only a quarter of THOSE people having broken straps. It's still too many people with broken straps (if the poll itself can be trusted) but still nowhere near 24% of all Wii owners.

Mansteak

Watch the Video of the man breaking the strap and then watch the nintendo commercials. At the rate that man was swinging he could hurt someone.

(noted also, there is a threshold for how fast you can throw the ball.. after a certain point you're wasting energy, time and quite possibly property/money)

I urge everyone to use just a bit of common sense.. The strap was intended for when you drop the wiimote.. Not when you throw it. It is a piece of electronic equipment not a baseball bat etc....

ARVash

Not taking responsibility for taking things too far and being negligent with your expensive stuff is your own fault.

And people hurting their joints or getting sore and so forth, you really are exerting yourself too hard. There's getting into the motions and then there's exceeding common sense for how much force you really need to perform the actions.

zapb42

You know what breaks the Wii remote strap? Swinging the Wii remote like a fucking maniac.

Yeah, I know people are crazy, but to be fair, thats how Nintendo has portrayed Wii players in nearly every single one of their ads or Wii experience videos. What are most non-gamers to think?

BlackYoshi

theflyingorc

This to me is the bigger story because we aren't doing anything wrong to make it stop working, and it starts working again just fine after doing a ton of things. Nintendo's troubleshooting section is terrible.

And as for the people who say not to use dramatic motions, you could also play most DDR style games using a controller, but why would you do that? Nintendo advertises the Wii with the dramatic motions. If I want to sit absolutely still while playing a game, I won't be playing that game on the Wii. Acting like you are actually playing tennis is much more fun than just making hand motions.

kingofallcosmos

Unplug your Wii and plug it back in. I had something similar happen to me, and for whatever reason, unplugging the Wii and replugging it in seemed to reset whatever problem I was having."

Second that. It turned out to be the console locking up as opposed to the wiimote no longer working.

As for the poll, you could vote multiple times could you not (it didnt require log-in)? That in itself makes the numbers quite meaningless...

P.S. Lol @ spellcheck for the comment box :)

Thrillhaus

goonface

That said, I wouldn't put too much faith in the poll -- I'm sure plenty of similarly deranged fanboys of other consoles picked the choice that they knew would set the Nintendrones into a tizzy."

Much like your post eh?

Artadius

That said, I wouldn't put too much faith in the poll -- I'm sure plenty of similarly deranged fanboys of other consoles picked the choice that they knew would set the Nintendrones into a tizzy.

n00b f. nation

The advertisements show people getting into the games, yes, but not with enough force to SMASH EXPENSIVE SHIT. Find me an advertisement from Nintendo showing people whipping the remotes around at 85mph with loose grips next to windows, thousand dollar plasma-screen TVs, and the like, and then we'll talk.

ryoshi

You have the 360, which screwed up it's head start with dying consoles. Then the PS3 which ushered in "true HD" by not being able to scale games to the various HD resolutions. Now the Wii is causing damage to property and players.

I think I'm gonna play some nice, safe, reliable Dreamcast.

AlteredBeast

Kittyhawk

Except for the error codes that people have been getting?

And HobbaHobba is right, which most of you have chosen to ignore. Nintendo advertises this thing like some crazy magic wand that you'll be jumping around with, swinging like a madman. Then you guys come here and put on your Nintendo Defense Force uniforms and say "UM IT's NOT NINTENDO'S FAULT YOU SHOULDN'T BE USING THEM LIKE THAT." Uh huh.

KaneRobot

I've once read an article about a gamer that's opened his mouse and sprayed it with a special spray to improve the handling of it, hence his CS performance. I laughted at it and thought it was stupid. But now, maybe I should think about doing the same with the wiimote, in order to avoid throwing it to my poor shiny new LCD screen :(

Do you think it would really help?

kalahann

I think the headline of this post should be changed to "Poll: 24 Percent of People Incapable of Holding Onto Objects".

Gavelwrench

testudorex

xibis

Sunjammer

Except, I was one of the people who said "Oh please, my 360 is working fine. Try not keeping it in an enclosed space." and then my 360 fried 5 months after purchase, and MS refuses to fix it for free...

But that said, just because you're playing a boxing game doesn't mean you have to punch the air as hard as you can, c'mon.

Gannoc

Michael_Nicolai

Unplug your Wii and plug it back in. I had something similar happen to me, and for whatever reason, unplugging the Wii and replugging it in seemed to reset whatever problem I was having.

leshrac55

Even in Wii Sports, you don't need to obliterate the sound barrier with your swing to pitch fast or swing hard or bowl hard, or golf.

Listen to Penny Arcade. Playing like that makes you a tool :)

reiphil

So don't just blame it to the people. Nintendo is also responsible for advertising it that way.

HobbaHobba

jgk79

This goes double for people who are complaining that it hurts to play.

Maybe we should start shipping all consoles with a disclaimer.

"If you use this device like an utter moron, bad stuff will happen to it."

Even if the strap was made out of nothing but sewing thread, do you have any idea how hard you would have to be swinging it in order to make it break?

Marasai

Frodo

wheezo

You know what breaks the Wii remote strap? Swinging the Wii remote like a fucking maniac.

God damn. I mean, I play hard, but I don't play as hard as that one guy in the Youtube video who rocketed his remote at a hojillion miles an hour playing Wii Sports Tennis. There's a threshold on the Wii Remote's sensitivity, and that dude's gone way beyond that threshold. I'll repeat that: You do not need to swing the remote so fucking fast.

Jesus Christ. Here.

Captain Waycool

Go ahead and play with the numbers, but man that headline is just plain bad.

Big John

I make sure to run everyone through the "safety" rules of the system, and the number one thing I reiterate is: Always play with your strap on (dirty again!), and hold onto the Wii-mote, cause it's not REALLY a baseball.

Couple of slips so far, no smashes.

RubxQub

I know people who treat their iPod shuffles more carefully than they do Wii controllers - perhaps a testament to the engrossing nature of the Wii, which is great, but also a testament to the fact that people are assuming that the product should be able to withstand any and all stress on it, however unreasonable.

By the time you're flinging a Wiimote hard enough to shatter things, you need to calm down, maybe play some Trauma Center or design a Mii.

hegemonyhog

This has to have at least a 10% margin of error, though, especially with all the people who would vote either to make Nintendo look good, or bad, without ever having used the Wii themselves.

iwanttobeasleep

AlteredBeast

Alucard400

Toneman

aHbiLL

Is that wire between the strap and the remote plastic or thread? It looks seriously flimsy, like a cat could shout at it and it'd pop.

Anyone make their own replacement straps yet? I can see this becoming somewhat of a fad"

Its really crappy thread, I took 6 strands out of some parachute cord "500+ lb rated" and made a backup strap complete with tensioner. I was hopeing to use the parachute cord straight up but its just a teeny bit to big to fit threw the hole in the controller. If I used it straight up I could have picked up my car with my homemade controller strap :P

Btw theres like 8-10 strings in a parachute cord, I would assume each would take at least 50 pounds the cord itself is woven and really strong so it probably takes 100 itself, so basically if this breaks and the wiistrap breaks as well "im using both" nintendo is buying me a new tv lol.

I dont see myself letting go of the remote however, friends and family will be playing, never trust the family.

redice

One of the suppliers cheaped out, so we see high failure rates. I'd check your straps for wear every so often until we get a mea culpa out of someone.

dieman

If Nintendo will provide new straps for money I can see why they didn't replace them with a stronger one yet.

But couldn't you just fix it with a cable tie?

Klappstuhl

Kotae

cakeordeath

PodMonkeys

nini

bassbeast

It's obviously an issue but I just wonder how much this will continue to happen as people get used to the remote and quit flailing around like their hair's on fire. I would assume the strap is less important than keeping a good grip (the strap should theoretically never even have stress on it), so maybe the controller gloves are a better idea than many made them out to be before the system launched...

Justin42

Cruithne

Anyone make their own replacement straps yet? I can see this becoming somewhat of a fad

Sunjammer