Wii have to say it, we were right

Stan Beer
Thursday, 21 December 2006 19:07

Opinion and Analysis

In our story, of December 18 2006 "Nintendo strap replacement an admission of guilt", we postulated that Nintendo could be facing some legal issues after initiating its Wiimote strap replacement program. For that, we were scolded by some Nintendo fanboys. Nevertheless, we were right - Nintendo has been slapped with its own strap.

According to a CNET report, law firm Green Welling has lodged a class action lawsuit stating that "Nintendo's failure to include a remote that is free from defects is in breach of Nintendo's own product warranty" was almost inevitable.

The irony of it is that Nintendo stands to be brought down on this issue by its own honorable and responsible behaviour.

A less responsible company would have admitted nothing and stood by its product. Nintendo, however, virtually admitted that the star attraction of its new wildly popular Wii console was a potentially unsafe projectile by offering to replace the restraining wrist straps on 3.2 million consoles.

While the Nintendo gesture is indeed admirable, the inescapable conclusion is that Nintendo itself believes its original straps were not good enough. Neither does it help the company's cause legally to give belated advice to players not to let go of the console or dry their sweaty hands before playing. It just adds to the case that the controller is potentially dangerous in the hands of over enthusiastic players.

There have been some suggestions that the other console makers could face similar lawsuits. In short, these suggestions are nonsense. Neither the Sony PS3 nor Xbox 360 controllers are potential projectiles and neither require restraining straps.

This is not to say that the problems that Nintendo faces with the Wiimote are anything more than a small hiccup in the future success of the console. In fact, the company is probably lucky that the issue surfaced so early before anything really serious happened. With new straps in place, the next 20 or 30 million consoles sold should cause no further problems.