This is why we can't have nice things.

I haven't played with the Wii yet, but HOW HARD ARE THESE GUYS SWINGING THE FARKING THING?!?!

Fake or real? What's the verdict?

MrAwes0me, you sound like my mom.

The Verdict? What a dipshit.

"Ummmm, Leroy, that beer bottle you chucked at the TV really $%#%$ed up the screen." "I'm sorry about that Jed, maybe we can cook up some story about the Wii-mote strappy thingy breaking and sue Nintendo?" "Sounds good to me, Leroy! Let's hit the blogs and fire up that RMA!" I'm calling BS on this one.

What an idiot. I've held the Wiimote. There is only one way to throw this thing at a TV, you would just have to do it. I can't believe this guy is seriously trying to pull this crap.

If you've seen a picture of the broken strap, you'll know it's BullSh*t. Both the strap and the place it connects to the wiimote are broken; either one or the other breaks, but no both. Also, the broken strap has obviously been cut; the tear is just too perfect.

I too call bullshit on this story.

1. Take the busted up tv you've had for a year.
2. Take the brand new console you bought and mutilate a piece you didn't want anyways.
3. ???
4. Profit!

I can't really say either way but I'm pretty sure that with Nintendo inviting so many otherwise stationary individuals to now begin moving around, accidents are bound to happen.

If it's true, it's lame!

People who play real sports must laugh at you for not being able to hold onto a small plastic remote control.

How many baseball players have thrown real bats out into the field.

Get a grip. Literally.

No, no, I believe it's quite possible actually.
Last night I was playing Wii Sports Baseball against some buddies I called over. We all spread-out around the room, but the pitcher was always put closest to the TV. Once while pitching, the Wiimote DID fly out of my hand, but was caught by the wrist strap thankfully. Otherwise, it would have gone flying straight into my 52" widescreen.

So those of you who say its fake either haven't actually played a Wii, or you've just never experienced Wii Sports (because I could see this happening with a few of the other games).

I gotta call BS on this one.

The Wiimote just doesn't have enough weight to snap the cord. If the Wiimote slips out of your hand, that cord is going to stop it.

Sounds like he's that kid would let the bat fly out his hands while playing tee-ball.

i can understand if this happened with the baseball, but it didn't. it happened while he was playing the bowling.

As someone mentioned at another tech site, we need to do some math...

First, figure out what speed the remote needs to be travelling at in order to damage a television. Factoring in the low weight of the remote, I imagine that speed is quite high, but don't worry about numbers - you're about to see that it doesn't matter.

Now, factor in the speed the remote needs to leave your hand in order to pull at the strap so hard that it breaks it. Again, factoring in the low weight of the remote, this number must be quite high indeed.

Finally though, consider this - when/if the strap actually DOES break, at the very least, it's sill going to slow the remote down tremendously. If the remote leaves your hand with x force, and y force is required to snap the tether, it will only hit the TV with z force, where z = x - y.

Even without filling in the actual numbers, it seems to me that in order for force z to be strong enough to break a television, force x must be inhuman.

But I don't own a Wii, and am neither a mathematician, doctor, physist or lawyer.

> Bender says: The Wiimote just doesn't have enough weight

F = MA

/Newtons second law of motion.
/The weight doesn't matter if it's going fast enough.

>jeffj-nj says: Now, factor in the speed the remote needs to leave your hand in order to pull at the strap so hard that it breaks it.

Ahh, but what if the failure of the strap wasn't a sudden 100% failure, but the result of wear and tear on the strap.

IE, strap starts with 100% of it's strength. Each super powerful gorilla swing takes 1% of the strength of the strap away.

After the 100th swing. The strap has no strength, but might still be attached. On the 101st swing, the strap has minimal strength.

Well, mass is really just weight without gravity factored in. So, though the wrong terminology was used, we can safely assume that the by 'low weight', Jeffnj really meant 'small mass'. Now by speed, well, he didn't really mean 'velocity' either. He meant the 'force of acceleration'. The z=x-y thing is a bit simplistic because it doesn't describe the type of force used (shearing force, tangential, etc).,. It doesn't take into account, the 'integrity' of the strap at the time the force was applied and in what direction that force was applied.

Also, finally, we don't know what the TV's screen was made of, or if there was any pre-existing structure damage to it prior to this insult. Being that physics is such a complex thing, it is, unfortunately, entirely possible that the a relatively small force could have been applied to a discreet enough area of the screen to initiate a cascading structural failure resulting in the 'crack'....

But I'm not physicist either....just a doctor...

We need a smash that actually has a reason: Smashmylcdtvwithawiimoteandseewhathappens.com

That kid is a dink.

I'm imagining more of a childish tug of war accident fighting over who gets to play next and one person pulling on the controller while the other has the strap around their wrist. then something thats supposed to hold the force of an accidental drop or throw is put to the test of might of two drunk college kids snaps and mr tv gets a nice UFC elbow to the face.

one other minor thing on the bullshit side:

i don't believe the strap would break like that. my guess is that it would come out of the plastic piece it is tied into before it would shear -so cleanly- in the middle.

also, is the wiimote broken? or at least damaged?

for all you calling fake...you might want to check out this video from IGN a professional game review site, whom this also happened to. And guess what game they were playing...Wii sports. Their remote flew across the room with enough force to dent a wall and shatter the remote into 3 pieces.
so here's me calling bullshit on all you naysayers.

http://media.wii.ign.com/articles/745/745202/vid_1742357.h...

NOT BULLSHIT!
this happened to the reviewers at IGN.com while playing Wii sports.
the strap broke and the wiimote flew across the room with enough force to dent the wall and shatter the controller.

here's the URL to the guy explaining what happened.
http://media.wii.ign.com/articles/745/745202/vid_1742357.h...

sorry if this double-posts.

definitely a problem with user error. I played wii sports all day yesterday. If you bat right handed, and have the controller teathered to your right hand its tempting (out of muscle memory) to release the wiimote and continue the followthrough of the swing with your left. Fact of the matter is, your hand actually has to release it for it to fly somewhere... the way its built you'd have to be retarded to have it slip out of your hand.

you will note from the video it shows the strap breaking as voodoodle mentioned. at the plastic part where the cord is conected to the webbing. this is a common failure point for something like this. However the photo above shows a break in the center like somebody took a pocket knife to it or it failed from stress associated from long use and friction something that would take a long time. probably months not hours.

Is this TV a CRT? becuase if it is I can't really see this being possible. I have seen old TV's thrown out on the side of the road withstand several direct hits with cinder blocks and other heavy objects. You would need alot of Wiimotes thrown pretty hard to break a CRT screen. Although if it's a plasma then I have no idea... Plus anything's possible (Within reason [although you never know]).

sharkilepsy, The article you linked to from IGN helps to prove this story is fake. The IGN story has the controller broken, and a small dent in the sheetrock. Making a dent in a wall takes less force than cracking a video screen.

If the controller in this story was broken as well and the strap was torn like in the linked video, I'd give it some credit. Instead the strap looks deliberately cut, and the controller is in one piece, so this story remains a fake.

People need to realize that swinging as hard as possible and getting into the game to the point of huffing and puffing is not necessary at all. Two of my friends last night let my Wiimotes go flying, one in Tennis and the other in Baseball. I had already warned them multiple times to keep the strap tight and calm down, but one claims the "strap was on tight, I could barely feel my hand that's why I let it go!" and the other quickly admitted to his wrongdoing. I can't wait to start hearing stories in the news about people getting hurt over the Wii. I would buy the Wiimote grips but they almost cost as much as the controller itself.

yeah, ok...your argument makes sense except for "Making a dent in a wall takes less force than cracking a video screen."

it's just not true.
punch a wall and you'll likely break your hand. punch a projection television and it will definately crack, but you'll probably only have scratches on your knuckles.

in other words, your argument makes no sense.

Wii-diots. Hang on to the freaking remote - otherwise you'll end up breaking something...

If you DO break your fancy TV, simply MAN UP and get the thing repaired. Luckily for this kid he didn't bust his fancy CRT HDTV - in this case his TV can be fixed.

Instead of commenting on whether or not this is true, I'd just like to say...

You can't idiot-proof everything.
Idiots are too ingenious.

Either way, this guy is a super-Kameamea idiot.

Alright... I have a bit to add

I was in a frat in college (til i graduated last year).
We had a big screen projection tv, my german friend was a big soccer fan, they lost a match he was watching, and being drunk he threw his key ring at the tv screen causing it to crack similar to the crack in the picture. His key ring consisted of 2 keys, the ring itself, and a small key fob. I haven't picked up a wii controller how does it compare weight wise to a couple keys? Obviously it's not as dense, so this is a tough comparison, but I just thought this story could help.

"punch a wall and you'll likely break your hand."
bullshit, if you hit a stud or something yea of course your going to break your hand. but not just plain sheetrock, it takes very little effort to punch a hole clean through a sheetrock wall

NickSpatula says:
That kid is a dink.

First he's white trash, now he's a dink.

Racist Kramer lovers.

I don't believe this bull. The remote would be broken and all that jazz but I can attest to the danger. I hit my dog in the face with the remote when she got a little too curious about the sounds coming from it. She won't make that mistake again.

I'm friends with the guy who's TV broke. Yes the guy is emo and can't hold on to a handle, but this is in fact true, as stupid as it is. He broke the TV on the Wii bowling or whatever. The reason its possible is because the distance from where they were playin to the TV is about 10 feet. The strap was on his hand, but the strap was faulty, and snapped, now at that distance it really doesn't matter how hard he threw it into the plexiglass screen.

So to clear the air, this is not bullshit.

oh, and trying to punch through a sheetrocked wall requires more force

Umm... riiiiight... ok. Here's the thing bud- physics tells me that anything launched will have the highest speed (assuming it's a projectile and is going in a straight line) at launch. 10 feet of airspace will give 10 feet of drag, and slowing down.
Here's the other thought... in order to get any decent velocity, you'd have to be throwing it overhand. And if you are BOWLING.... that's underhand.

The wrist strap is also a nylon blend. Nylon is used for ropes and materials that REQUIRE strength- like mountaineering equipment. Somehow, I highly doubt that a wii remote (and yes, I've played the wii)would have the required velocity at any point- unless of course it is intentionally done to try to get money out of the company.
By the way- nylon doesn't rip unless something sharp pierces it. And after thouroghly examining the wiimote... I have found nothing sharp...

It can and has happened, My friend through the remote into a 46" flat screen TV, It broke both the screen and the anti glare screen because the tether snapped, it looked like fishing line with a cloth encasing. Luckily it was a projection TV so he only has to replace the screens but that might still cost over $500

And no kiwi, you are wrong, it is not a nylon blend, its a fishing line with a nylon wrap, it actually seperated from the fishing line and was frayed at both ends while the line was snapped in the center, look closer and dont guess if you are going to be arrogant. As far as boling i learned that a wrist snap can increase power but is it enough to break a TV, i dont know, my friend did it with a backhand on tennis.