Wii Straps Out of Control
101479
By Brendan Brosh, Daily News, New York  Dec. 16--Nintendo says the fix is in.   The company is offering to replace 3.2 million remote control straps from  its wildly popular Wii console because of a surge of complaints.
704636
Gabe: I took the Wii home over the weekend and was able to put quite a bit of time into Zelda. There was what I would describe as a bru ha ha over at Joystiq when one of their bloggers claimed the game was a flop. He cited its terrible graphics as reason enough to dismiss it entirely. The response in the thread afterwards was heated with lots of people claiming that the graphics weren"t as bad as he claimed and that the game actually looked really good. Having played it all weekend I"m here to tell you that"s not the correct response.
492783
Scatter-gun peripheral design protection? A European patent application filed by Nintendo has reveals a raft of ways the console giant could extend the use of the Wii Remote, ranging from the strange to the downright ridiculous.â¦
279038
The much-maligned first-person shooter/sword-fighting title makes great use of the Wii controller, but the game design was clearly rushed to make launch day. In Game|Life.
103750
Nintendo Co. Ltd.  said it would  voluntarily exchange globally 3.2 million straps attached to  the controllers of its Wii game console with stronger ones  after some reports of broken straps.
530941
Console proves medical hit The Wii is proving a hit across the US medical scene. Several US hospitals have admitted using the Nintendo console as an additional method of post-injury patient rehabilitation.â¦
356566
The reception of Nintendo's Wii video game console has been enthusiastic &#151; too enthusiastic, apparently, for the straps that are supposed to keep the game controllers in the hands of players.
514188
By Troy Wolverton, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.  Dec. 16--Nintendo hoped the motion-sensing controller for its new Wii  console would get users excited and give the game machine some buzz.   It turns out that some Wii users got a little too excited.
580108
Couch potatoes beware -- slumping for hours in front of the television or computer can cause severe lower back pain which may take months or years to cure.
300271
The quest for a wireless, robust video game controller is a hit and miss task, says columnist Daniel Etherington.
242975
Tycho:  Sony hasn't been entirely clear regarding what their 1.92 update for the Playstation 3 actually does, suggesting that it "focuses on some PS3 compatibility and playability issues for select titles," but our own experience with the update has been conclusive.  In the Internet's dark places, aggrieved Lair fans are suggesting that this update improves the game's motion controls, and that each media outlet must rescind their previous scores.  I'm fairly certain this is magical thinking - neither Sony or Factor 5 will say with any specificity, and now that both our PS3s are updated it would be impossible to test.  Typically we don't take the traditional holidays off, nor do we take off non-traditional holidays, such at the Feast of St. Motherfucker - a holy day that I've only just now invented.  Gabe's father was around, though, and golf seemed like a good time investment.  Reading greens and choosing clubs for other people is about as far as I get, so for me the social aspects of the game are paramount.  Standing under the awning at the driving range, it's hard not to see where EA's Tiger series could improve.      This year's lobby system is much improved over last year's, but I'm not sure why the lobby itself couldn't be a driving range.  This is how virtually any actual round of golf starts, with every person hitting the bucket they bought and lamenting their performance.  A few of their minigames would work just fine in this context - don't create a custom game to play them, build all of the basic play into a casual, central experience.  From here, modes, courses, and wagers are established.  When new people pull in, carts can be heard.  Links for the 360 wasn't as complete as Tiger, but it had four player modes first - and it had a means to play Speed Golf that Tiger should loot from its fallen enemy.  Essentially, you play the round as normal.  Everyone else plays the round as normal simultaneously, and shots are keyed to a certain color so that the arc of each person's shot is visible to all other players.  They need to steal this - throw the name of each player on there, use the face, whatever.  This needs to be how it works.  You can play an entire course in a quarter of the time.  The RPG metaphor really worked the first few times I bought the product, but it's really lost its currency with me.  There's a point - and it may be with the '08 version of the product - where the number of courses are such that I don't actually want to pay sixty dollars again just to lose all of my character progression every year.  Gabriel's suggestion is to approach it more like a fighting game, which is to say like Mario Golf - with discrete golfer archetypes that have a suite of skills.  I'm wondering if Guild Wars doesn't have the answer - full priced expansions every year, with a perpetually tracked online experience where your prior purchase actually increases the value of the next.  Let all play - online and off - be a part of the core experience, let all play hone your ability.  Don't wall off online play into some purgatory as it is now, untracked, outside of the normal scheme of advancement.    With these thoughts in my head, excited by the sun-dappled future we had envisioned. we sat down to play a round online the next night.  After determining that one of us couldn't play at all or it would crash the game for everyone - a weird kind of crash where you can't play, but you're able to talk to one another about the crash - we were able to play eight holes, at which point it crashed before a victor could be determined.  They've only just made online Photo Game Face available for Tiger, for the first time since launch, but they had to deactivate online features for two other titles to do it.  So, no.  I don't have high hopes.
402950
Nintendo Co. Ltd. has some cautionary advice for players of its Wii video game console: when waving the controller, use the wrist strap, keep your palms dry and, whatever you do, don't let go.
483520
While Nintendo Wii gamers are having a smashing good time with one of this holiday season's hottest-selling game consoles, Nintendo is being hit with a lawsuit over the Wii's uniquely designed controllers.
313170
By Troy WolvertonSTAFF  Nintendo plans to replace the wrist straps on the controllers for its new Wii console following reports of injuries and damaged equipment.   The company will replace 3.2 million straps at a cost of several million dollars, according to the Associated Press.
414177
By Heather Newman, Detroit Free Press  Dec. 17--So many games came out with the new consoles last month --  Nintendo's Wii and Sony's PlayStation 3 -- that it has been impossible to play  them all from beginning to end.
176699
Japanese gamemaker Nintendo on Friday announced the recall of 3.2 million straps for its popular Wii computer game controllers.
47153
Blog: Put down the Wii, gentlemen. This is a board meeting.