[QueenB]

For US/Japanese Wii owners:

Originally Posted by ign

After complaints from Wii owners that their wrist straps broke as they were playing -- sometimes resulting in damaged hardware or worse, personal injuries -- Nintendo today announced that it is improving the quality of its strap for future controllers and offering free replacements to customers. The thickness of the Wii wrist strap was initially set at 0.6 millimeters. However, all future versions of the controller, whether packed with the console or sold separately, will feature thicker 1-millimeter wrist straps.
Nintendo Co. Ltd. out of Japan started offering users who bought original Wii consoles and controllers the option to exchange their wrist straps for free starting today. The company is also stressing that the wrist strap is designed as a secondary safety device and that users should not let go of the controller when they are playing Wii software.
UPDATE: Nintendo of America followed suit on Friday morning. Nintendo Wii owners can order strap replacements via the company's official website.

and for European gamers:

Originally Posted by ign

Hot on the heels of announcements in the US and Japan, Nintendo Europe has revealed that it too will be offering Wii owners the chance to grab a fistful of thicker, more durable wrist straps for the console's remote.

Following reports all over the net of flailing appendages and failing straps, Nintendo has taken measures to increase the thickness of the string connecting the wrist straps to the Wiimote itself, with updated versions measuring 1mm in diameter, rather than the original 0.6mm. As a precaution, the company has pledged to replace older straps with the newer versions at the request of concerned consumers. Currently, Nintendo of Japan has 3.5 million of the little blighters waiting in the wings.

According to Nintendo, "Even though the original straps are perfectly adequate for normal play, we can't control the exuberance of players. Nintendo has made new wrist straps that are about twice as thick and stronger than the original wrist straps as an additional precaution. These are being included in all new hardware shipments and sent to consumers who request them."

However, while the move has erroneously been described as a 'recall' elsewhere on the 'net, Nintendo is keen to stress that, "There will be no product recall. There is no problem with the wrist strap as long as the Wii Remote is used sensibly and properly in accordance with the guidelines provided by Nintendo. However, we will be providing replacement wrist straps free of charge to consumers who request them."

To put things in perspective, there are currently around 325,000 Wii consoles in homes across Europe, with an impressive 925,000 remotes in circulation. However, Nintendo claims to have only been contacted by 20 customers globally regarding the strap issue.

Anyone in Europe who's interested in picking up the thicker wrist straps for their more ill-coordinated gaming friends, should keep their eyes on Nintendo's official European website for more information this Monday.

This Monday being....18th December.

If you have "ill-coordinated gaming friends" (lmao) - keep watching and get that thicker strap - you can always tie their hands together with it and stop them even touching your precious Wii!



QB