f13.net

The Wii is winning.

http://www.wiihaveaproblem.com/

Is it really THAT hard to hang onto the controller?

Also, I can't seem to get an ISP that doesn't fucking suck after 2-3 months. I'm sitting at 25-75% packet loss and I have no idea why after trying every troubleshooting method I know.

I read that.  I'm a MyNintendo member, too, so as long as I don't crack my CRT I should be golden.

Er, assuming I get one anytime soon.  I am thinking of freezing myself until summer so I can get a green one.

I have no idea how people lose control of their Wii controllers.

Fab, these are gaming nerds we are speaking of. For some of them, it might even be the first time in years they've played tennis or baseball.

Probably the same way they lose control of their bodily functions. Extreme young or old age, or severe brain injury.

Just like Guitar Hero, people will be proud of damage caused while playing.

In Guitar Hero, you rock too hard.

In Nintendo, cell phone strap made like shit.

In So...nevermind.

Swinging the Wii remote by the strap is probably asking for it.  That cell phone strap's apparent function is to provide a backup in case one's sweaty loose grip can't hold onto it themselves, but it's only going to work many times before snapping.  Perhaps the first Wii mods will be glueing abrasive substances to the remote to make it easier to hold onto.  Either that, or maybe chaining the remote to a stick so you can swing it around morningstar style and get some real power into those tennis swings... up to the point where the plastic case gives way or you brain an innocent bystander/yourself.

I swing my phone around for fun. That strap isn't breaking. It was made for Atlus :).

Is it that hard to understand that the Wii strap really is just a piece of shit? Can you get by the fact they made Mario? CAN IT BE DONE?

My question is why people are carelessly swinging their fragile electronics around in the first place.

Sure, maybe the thing is flimsy.  I have no idea.  But I always take this stuff with a grain of salt.

Because you know if exactly 5 idiots broke their TV's with their Wiimote then there would be pictures of at least 10 broken TV's on a site somewhere.  People ALWAYS complain about this shit make shit up and/or focus on a few isolated cases.  There is probably a thread somewhere for just about every XBox 360 game ever released where someone claims that this game gave them the "red ring of death".

I don't doubt the strap is shit.  This is Nintendo, which I sometimes think is Japanese for Corner-Cutting; the main thing they make is going to be solid as a rock (NES controller!), but some other part that you'd think anyone would have gotten right, they go cheap on (NES cart slot!).  I also don't doubt that people are breaking their shit by being dumbasses.  I'd wager that these same people have broken televisions and windows with other strange objects as well, like a gallon jug of Julio Gallo or their Aunt Shirley.  There is probably overlap with the set of people that arrive in the emergency room with objects in their asses that must be surgically removed.

Doesn't the Wiimote have rumble?  Teledildonics.

I wouldn't call it that.  Maybe a timid quivering. 

Enough of a rumble that it's easily felt.  It won't be a good simulation of shotgun recoil by any means, it is weaker than most other rumbles, but it's adequate and better than a wavebird's total lack of rumbles.

As for people tossing their controllers around, I watched a video of some jackass who tossed his, and it was because the idiot was swinging as hard as he could.  Yeah, if you flail the remote like your life depends on it, sooner or later you're liable to drop it.  I bought one of the controller sleeves and do not swing the control like a jackass and have never had anything but a perfectly secure grip on the controller as a result.  Some people say 'Oh, you need a reinforced metal wrist strap!'  Uh, no, the wrist strap is there to protect the remote from being dropped, not to protect it from being hurled by the incredible hulk.  It's perfectly fine as long as the user isn't a retard.

The rumble being weaker than previous controller versions is offset fairly well, IMO, by the tinny speaker in the Wiimote. The combination of positional sound with rumble works pretty damn well.

Okay, the strap can't support 300 lbs of pressure on it or anything, but it's hardly "shit".  While playing the Wii, you're clearly given reminders a hundred times about how you need to be careful while playing and how you need to keep a hold of the Wiimote.  As illustrated by the video "evidence" (http://kotaku.com/gaming/clips/clips-wii-remote-strap-breaking-217120.php) of Nintendo's "faulty" product, if you throw the Wiimote like you're purposely trying to kill the damn thing, then yes, it's going to break.  Just think about how hard people are throwing these things to not only break the strap, but also a CRT, window, etc., directly afterwards.

I have no doubts that if the straps were made of steel, steakheads everywhere would be breaking the plastic bit that the straps connect to -- bitching incessantly about the cheap plastics Nintendo used to manufacture the Wiimotes.

Fucking retards. It's a game.

There's no reason to swing as hard as that guy did in the "evidence" video. None. You can swing half that hard and still have a decent Wii tennis shot. It's cool that he's immersed and all, but fuck.

Was this a typo or is the Wiimote speaker sound tinny?

The more we see the Wii ads, the more my wife begins to cave in on the relative necessity of having one.

It's definitely tinny, but not moreso (well, for me anyways) than you would expect from such a small speaker.  Kinda hard to get that awesome bottom-end from such a tiny cone.

That wasn't a typo, it is tinny, a bit like a mediocre cellphone connection.

It still works pretty damn well for adding immersion, though.

Do people let go of their rackets when playing tennis normally? Have I been playing tennis wrong all this time?

They'd probably let go of their rackets more often if the handles were made of slippery plastic. Though in this thread the Wiimote is criticized for having a flimsy safety cord, maybe the real issue is that it lacks a good gripping foam handle.

I've yet to have any problem keeping a grip of my Wiimote. Maybe if gamers washed the cheeto dust off first.  :-P

Me either, but perhaps we just know how to periodically wipe the sweat from our palms, consciously keep our grip on the expensive Wiimote, or just...  oh, I don't know...  not throw the device as if we were renovating our homes, intending to open up some space by removing a wall with it.

Only when very pissed off.  This can result in severe racket damage.  I may have to stay away from the Wii.  I destroyed at least 2 GC controllers playing Madden.

My last Nintendo product to die from "Gamer Abuse" was the original NES controller. Let us just say that, at the tender age of 12 or so, had a serious disagreement with Super Tecmo Bowl, which resulted in a cracked controller.

My PC keyboard, on the other hand -- it's not games that kill that thing. It's the damage I do about 10 hours into a coding session, when I'm banging up against someone else's stupidity. I've only broken one in the last few years, so either my coworkers are getting smarter or my ability to tolerate idiocy is getting higher.

I've never broken anything gaming-related. What is wrong with people?

Same.  Hell, I still have my *original* Nintendo.  And Atari 2600.

Last piece of electronics I broke out of anger was my Commadore 64 Keyboard, twenty-something years ago.  About that point, I learned that physical intimidation does not work on computer hardware, it only intimidates your having working computer hardware.

These days the only gaming related thing I break at PS2 controllers, because I somehow end up leaving them outside down and then stacking things on top of them when they're not in use.  There's no quicker way to ruin the calibration, and I dream of the day I'll be able to play a PS2 game without having my character lurch off to one side when I release the stick.

My PS2 controllers break for no reason. I've gone through quite a few.

What kind of faggot doesn't immediately remove the lanyard upon opening up the Wii?  That's the first thing I did.  If you're a big enough douche to wear a lanyard on your wrist, it stands to reason you're a big enough douche to flail around hyper aggressively until the remote flies out of your hand. 

I was at a party tonight. The _only_ thing that got the same amount of play as the Wii was Guitar Hero 2. And even then, when it came down to one TV, WiiSports won out.

And I have to say it was quite a bit of fun to make a drunken ass out of myself playing WiiSports.

Yeah but was the remote ever in danger of coming out of your hand?

I got one of these this morning after a short stint in line at Target. It is beyond me how this thing could come out of your hand during normal use.

Which is why the lanyard was clearly intended for the old and feeble or weak and greasy.

No, not even after a half-dozen beers while playing WiiSports Boxing. You'd have to have been eating a whole lot of greasy chips or something with your WiiMote hand.

"Lets make this game interesting - I've embedded a live grenade in the handle of the Wii Wand and the safety cord acts as a pin."

(http://images.dailytech.com/nimage/3272_large_important-safety-information-for-playing-wii.jpg)

I must admit I haven't been perfect in clearing a proper 3 foot area around me and have smacked chairs or bookcases with my Wiimote and hand. There has never been a point however when I thought it might slip out of my hand, no matter how hard I was swinging it.

I liked that bit about bowling.

It does convey some interesting points about what they determined about people during the Q&A phase.

1) No, we can't trust people to understand what the safety strap is for.

2) No, we cant' trust people to understand that throwing the remote is not part of the game.

3) No, we can't trust people to understand that the remote won't pass intangibly through objects and people while they're distracted with what's going on in the game.

4) Yes, we realize the safety strap is insufficient for the job to resist the weight of the remote when people string it hard enough.

5) Yes, we've decided we'd better act as if safety was our primary concern so people don't have good grounds to sue us over the inevitable damage they'll cause once we release this beast to the public.

Retards in action: http://www.wiidamage.com/

Fucking retards. Such people should be sterilized.

Fake site.  Nobody is going to whack their kid (cousin, whatever) with a Wiimote, then post said picture on a site dedicated to such things as though there were a popup on the Wii to remind them of such things.  Such things will probably occur though.  Accidents happen.

I have to say, though, that despite the crumminess of the wii-speaker, this is the best force-feedback ever in a controller.

The Dual Shock and the Xbox 360 apparently just had little matchbox car/dildo motors in them that shook the controller, but they've got something more sophisticated in the wiimote. It's much less obtrusive and much more effective. I noticed that the horseback riding in zelda was unexpectedly cool for some reason, and it was only then that I realized that the controller was giving very slight force feedback every time the horse's hoofs hit the ground.