News Nintendo taken to court over dodgy straps

of course they should be sued. peoples property and bodies have been damaged.

saying its their fault for being so dumb isnt fair. you have a lot of non-traditional gamers playing these things that arent used to the technology. they dont know how it works, so they dont know that you dont need to swing so hard (or maybe dont care because theyre playing how its fun for them to play). secondly, the whole putting a handle on a box comparison lacks one big part. when there is a safty strap or a handle on something, you expect it to work. you put your trust into it. you dont assume its there for looks and keep being paranoid and ignore it and keep being safe the more difficult way. saying thats wrong is just as stupid as saying "well just because you put a lock on your front door is no reason for you to stop barricading it. the lock could fail, why put your trust into it? stupid"

peoples property has been damaged because nintendo sells a product with a safety measure, that only appears to be safe, in practice it fails. you wouldnt have a problem with sueing a car maker for making a car with a seatbelf that failed, would you?

i dont think suing is out of the question, nor do i think a complete recall is. this is a major problem, no matter if you think its silly because its a dumb mistake since you can keep calm while playing.

and, of course, just because you like nintendo because the wii is fun, is no reason to defend them

 

QFT!

 

RTFM Guys!

What is the world coming to!

 

It won't succeed surely as they are not using it correctly. It says in the manual not to use excessive force, if they have done then they have not been using it for what it was designed for.
The big question is, why did they let go of it in the first place?

 

No, they shouldn't be sued - it's the users fault for any breakage caused. The idots are probably flinging the Wiimote around with the same kind of force they'd use to throw a football.

M4RTIN has got it spot on - if they didn't include straps in the first place, there probably wouldn't be such an uproar.

The strap is obviously not designed to withstand that much force. It's like the lanyard that comes with the DS Lite - it's strong enough to take the weight of the machine (plus gravity) if you accidently drop it.
Is there anything in the Wii manual about the strap? I'm assuming it's similar to the DS one in that it'll stop the Wiimote from hitting the floor if you drop it, but it's not going to withstand anything more than that (and that's exactly what I'd expect the strap to do).

I still don't understand how the **** people let go the Wiimote?!

 

spot on!

moron. (or troll, who knows?)

 

i will say this as being a person who is quite impartial to all console gaming mostly because i am a PC gamer and cannot wrap my brain around any controller with just 10 buttons however that is a different discussion all together.

i myself do not own a Wii however my friends do and after playing on theirs and all the abuse i have seen this console take i am surprised that people would be breaking the straps at all. it doesn't take much force to use the controllers. they are actually very sensitive and even the small wrist flick will send most monkey balling fanboys flying off the track.

<rant>
we have all seen the videos of people innocently playing on their Wii then all of the sudden they take this massive Venus and/or Serena style swing sending their wiimote flying. WHAT DID THEY THINK WAS GOING TO HAPPEN? was the wiimote supposed to have the tensile strength of steel braided cable? i have to conclude right here and now that in this world; there have been idiots before, are idiots around us now, and will still be idiots roaming this earth long after we are gone. the only difference we can make is to not give them the ability to inflict another headache on some company trying to make a buck.

after all Nintendo did realize hey we could use some better straps and are offering them to customers FREE of charge. when did they do this you ask? BEFORE any class action lawsuits were filed because it was the right thing to do. sure they could have given us the middle finger and waited to do anything until after they lost a BS class action suit; but they didn't.

I'm not sorry for this rant. i have seen so many companies out there sued for frivolous things however i still cannot believe someone would file a case AFTER THE FIX IS OFFERED FREE TO THE PUBLIC!! i hope the case is thrown out.

it has been said by one of my favorite comedians before and i will reiterate his words here: "...you know me man i just hate stupid people. i think that they should have to wear signs that say I'm stupid...you know why there are warnings on products ladies and gentlemen its because of stupid people...that way if they are wearing the sign then you just wouldn't sell them the product..."

</rant>
i still cannot believe that someone is actually going to try and get some money out of this...i swear...

 

ignorance isn't an excuse for blaming nintendo. I can't believe you even made this point.. my mind boggles

You put your trust into something to work as its supposed to be used. Correct me if I'm wrong, but no where does nintendo say that swinging a wiimote as fast and hard as a major league pitcher is how its intended to be used... or that its supposed to be stepped on, barbequed, run over or eaten by chipmunks...

funny thing being that the vast silent majority of people that have intelligence and proper motor control haven't seen any such 'failure'

yea, personal responsibility?? pfff, that'll never catch on..

agreed

 

Lets think of an interview with the kind of people the wiimote issue has hurt:

"I am a 33 year old middleschool dropout due to confusion over which end of the pencil to hold and basic motor skills. My mommy recently purchased the nintendo wii for me as I had finally mastered all of the concepts that came with my leapfrog learning tablet. Sometimes when I am waving my remote around helplessly I find it slipping out of my hand. Though this has nothing to do with my inability to grasp objects in my hand."

He also added at the end of the interview that he had trouble with wetting himself.



Honestly. I am sure everyone can recall that lady sueing mcdonalds because she spilt hot coffee in her lap. Though she did win, so who even knows.

 

ROFL i almost pissed myself reading this!
Good one WR

 

lol this is priceless. Dont you just love it

 

It won't go to court. In fact, the lawyers probably aren't really looking for a court case, just a settlement. Or maybe I'm watching too much Boston Legal.

 

Try reading the McDonalds case before you judge it. . .

The Wii strap is failing everywhere- the strap appears to be a "safety measure" but it sucks. What if a car company released a really weak seat-belt that failed in every single accident? Would there not be a problem if the car manufacturer said the seat belt was only good for accidents at speeds less than 10MPH?

The Wii strap is a excessively small piece of string that can not perform it's job. For that reason, I can see why people would sue Nintendo.

However, Nintendo does claim that product was being used in a un-approved way so I can see support for Nintendo. I look forward to seeing how the lawsuit goes.

And Saeqhwin, I hope you don't consider Boston Legal a legal education. . .

L J

 

May I point everyone to the following:

http://www.nintendojo.com/fullfocus/view_item.php?1166055790

While it's not "Scientific" per se, I'd say that suspending 25 pounds of books and 100 fl oz of Mountain Fresh laundry detergent on a wiimote strap (Hung off a banana hook) and it NOT BREAKING is a pretty good indicator of how hefty that strap is.

And, in true Mythbusters style, when he then attempted to replicate the breaking of the strap... Well, I'll quote directly:

Now, just what were they doing with that remote/strap?

 

Obviously they're just trying to make a quick buck. Nintendo have stated that to use the Wiimote, you need not do large or forceful swings; little ones will do. Excuse me if I sound a bit stereotypical, but it seems as if they only break when idiotic Americans, who think they're top sh*t at baseball, etc... try and do 500km/h swings and pitches. If anyone should be suing anyone, Nintendo should be suing them for being so idiotic.

People just need to grow the hell up and get some common sense, it is only a little plastic remote with a small strap; it's not built for these massive pitches, etc...

 

Maybe one of these days Mythbusters will come up with a Wii related episode. "Can regular use of Wiimote break its straps, causing it to fly across the living room. We are about to bust a myth that led to countless lawsuits back in 2006 when Nintendo Wii was released."

 

I have done. And for anyone to say that the merits of the case were met, I'd say they didn't understand the ruling. The whole basis of the suit was the temperature at which the coffee was brewed (Hotter than a normal coffee-maker, so they can get better life out of the beans). The fact that the woman was a stupid idiot, who placed a fresh and hot cup of coffee between her legs while driving, then wondered why when she squeezed her legs together the hot coffee spilt on her lap, had absolutely nothing to do with it. The verdict was passed on a hyper-technicality.

Everywhere? I've had a Wii since launch day, have played it almost every day, and neither strap on either of my two remotes has broken. And I've "Thrown" the remote a few times while bowling, which caused bruised underarms (Where the remote swung round and hit the back of my arm), but certainly no breakage.

And, in testing (As linked to above by myself), the Wii remote strap can take in excess of 25lbs. Considering the remote itself weighs just under 1lb, that makes a force of at least 25G - more than even the highest of high-G turns a fighter pilot has to endure (5-7G), and (according to NASA) enough to cause "Structural damage, especially to spine".

So, if people are throwing their Wii remotes at 25G (Or higher), how comes they don't also have broken hands/arms? And if it's enough force to break the strap, then surely it's also enough force (being applied by the strap) to break their wrist. In that case, which would you rather? Keep the remote and strap, and have a broken wrist, or have the strap break to ensure there's no real bodily harm?

Do you have one? Have you used one? Have you broken one?

Of course there would be. But that is not the case here. To extend your analogy, what if the seat-belt broke when the car was in a crash at 460MPH+? Would that belt be considered unsafe?

While the string may appear small, it's certainly strong.

As do I. Some stress tests on the straps would help a lot, too, I think.

 

This is fundamentally wrong. You cannot 'throw' something at 25G. If the strap breaks at 120N (force of gravity on 12kg), then the maximum force that the wiimote can exert on your hand/wrist is also 120N. That is about equivalent to hanging a 12kg weight on your wrist (NOT dropping it, just hanging it). Last time I checked, normal people don't break their wrists lifting 12kg/25lb objects.

 

Even though I don't agree with the lawsuit I think you have made a very valid point. Most of the press I've seen is about how "intuitive" it is to play. No matter what the manual says how many of us actually read it first? We expect to be able to figure things out (without the manual) and that is one of Nintendo's selling points.

The question I have is: how many people will intentionally have "accidents" just to attempt to cash in on this?

I want to say: only in the Litigious States of America where almost everything is "someone else's fault" - but humans are no different around the world - though cultures & thought patterns can be different

 

One word (well, one acronym)

LOL!

Nintendo didn't mean to make it unsafe and are trying to stop it now, those sueing are just money hungry.

If you have fat sausage fingers don't try to play a Wii with loose grip!