Nintendo Wii gaming consoles have been flying off retailer shelves, and now the Wii controllers are literally flying around gamers' living rooms. The Wii is famous for its innovative, motion-detecting remote control that lets gamers wave their arms to play a game instead of throttling a joy stick. Some enthusiastic gamers, however, have discovered that twirling the controller by its strap achieves optimum results...until the strap gives way and the controller becomes a plastic guided missile.

Gaming blogs began to report the problem some time ago, and in late November Nintendo actually added a safety precaution page to its web site exhorting gamers to "Hold the Wii Remote firmly and don't let go!"

Now, the blog Wii Have a Problem reports (via vnunet) that "Nintendo has announced that they are investigating the possibility of a stronger strap to take care of over zealous players." (Click here for excellent photo of a Wii remote penetrating the hardened plastic armor of an unsuspecting television set.) In a press conference yesterday, in fact, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata conceded that "Some people are getting a lot more excited than we'd expected. We need to better communicate to people how to deal with Wii as a new form of entertainment."

These are the sort of problems, of course, that a gaming company wants to have. Far better to be Nintendo with its faulty strap issue and torrid first day sales in Europe, than to be Sony with its high cost machine and flaccid sales.