Nintendo recalls 3.2 million Wii controller straps

Adam Turner
Friday, 15 December 2006 14:30

Your IT - Entertainment

Nintendo has discovered a Wii problem with its new games console's controllers - the straps fail to stop the controller flying out of people's hands and across the room.

Waving the motion-sensitive controllers around is a key component of the Wii's attraction, mimicking tennis rackets, golf clubs and swords. Such vigorous game play requires wrist straps should the controllers slip from players' hands. Reports of faulty straps emerged as soon as the Wii games console was released, but the Japanese gaming giant has now officially recalled 3.2 million of them.

The strap recall affects all Nintendo Wiis sold worldwide and almost all units currently on shelves in shops. Nintendo will allow customers to exchange the old straps, which have a 0.6 millimetre (0.024 inch) diameter, for a beefer 1 millimetre (0.04 inch) strap - costing the company millions of dollars."

People tended to get a bit excited, especially while playing Wii sports and in some cases the control would come loose from their hands," said company spokesman Yasuhiro Minagawa. "The new strap will be almost twice as thick."

Straps aside, the new console has been a big hit for Nintendo, with more than 325,000 machines sold in Europe, more than 600,000 in the US and more than 400,000 in Japan on launch day alone.