StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Just sent to my by a friend:


Wii owners beware! When Nintendo said they didn't care for HDTV...they meant it! That sneaky Miyamoto created self-destructing wrist straps knowing full well of the Wii-motes HDTV-seeking missile capabilities. Not one but two separate incidents have been reported!

So remember...when playing with your Wii...make sure you double up on protection.

I smell bullshit. You'd have to be swinging it pretty fucking hard to break it, much less crack a TV screen. Not only that, but you would have to LET GO of the remote. I tried out bowling with a friend, and that strap was pretty fucking secure.

So it's either fake, or they are fucking morons. Take your pick.

Edit: Just saw the IGN Vid. The strap was looks cut, IMO. Wouldn't the strap break at the midpoint between the controller and the hand instead of the loop?

Both pictures look fake. The cut is just too clean.

Davis 51 wrote:I smell bullshit. You'd have to be swinging it pretty fucking hard to break it, much less crack a TV screen. Not only that, but you would have to LET GO of the remote. I tried out bowling with a friend, and that strap was pretty fucking secure.

So it's either fake, or they are fucking morons. Take your pick.

You have to release the trigger button to release the bowling ball. I could see someone's hand relaxing too much.

Edit: Just saw the IGN Vid. The strap was looks cut, IMO. Wouldn't the strap break at the midpoint between the controller and the hand instead of the loop?

No. All the stress is on the loop (the thinnest part of the strap), right where the loop is attached to the controller. If it's going to snap, that's exactly where it'd be.

EDIT: Oh, the position of the break on the IGN video is different from the snapping point on the article pictures. I might have misread you, also. Anyway, the thin part that connects the strap to the controllers is what should snap if something is going to snap.

Perhaps he's simply very clumsy and is trying to use a 'poor wrist strap design' as an excuse to hide it?

There should be reports of straps breaking and not hitting TVs. There's at least one in the comments, but there ought to be many more in the coming days, or this is bogus.

Alan Bolte wrote:There should be reports of straps breaking and not hitting TVs. There's at least one in the comments, but there ought to be many more in the coming days, or this is bogus.

That depends on when one is most likely to lose a grip on the remote. In bowling, one has to release a button so the grip is loosened. And, generally, someone playing bowling is facing the screen and the hand generally ends up facing that general direction after a throw. When bowling, the TV is the most likely "target." (And the bigger the TV, the more likely it will be hit.) We should get some reports of near misses or other items on the entertainment center being hit (I wonder if we'll get any reports of an X-Box 360 or PS3 being hit).

The IGN one was playing a different game (tennis?), and so the controller hit a wall instead. Those will be less likely, though, since the player isn't required to loosen the grip on the remote to swing.

It's not out of the realm of possibility. I've seen people swing *normal* controllers with enough violence to seriously injure someone should they lose their grip. However, I've accidentally launched hard objects at my own big screen before, and the plastic screen cover is fairly flexible and can take a knock without cracking, so you'd have to put your heart into it or have one of the older glass sets.

I'm getting vibes of fakeness as well. The Wiimote just doesn't strike me as the kind of thing that can produce a crack of that size in a big-screen TV even if you were to whip it at the screen with full damaging intent, not to mention that even if the cord did snap as it went airborne the initial resistance it offered would still slow the Wiimote down or cause it to veer off to the side.

I'd bet money that, as General Zod suggests, they bashed the TV due to their own clumsiness, then decided to break the strap (it looks too frayed and messy to be cut, you ask me) and blame it on a strap failure.

There's this video on IGN too. Notice how there the strap broke at the base.

I can accept the strap breaking, but the smashed TV?
That glass is usually pretty damn resistant, you would have to throw the remote pretty fucking had and make sure it hits straight on to break it.

The first report I know is definately from somebody over at Something Awful.