Stuff that peels your potatoes with paring knives of ANGER.

[MortifiedocAlot]

I hate how it's socially unacceptable to not want to chug a beer. I have a fucking awful stomach (can't eat breakfast because my stomach usually hurts too much by then, I'm rarely hungry because of it) so if I try to drink ANYTHING too fast it will upset it.

[Spectere]

So my Wiimote just failed.  Sometimes the lights will blink.  Sometimes one or two of the lights will be on solid, other times a single light will be lit at half brightness, but it won't turn on and sync with the system.

Seriously, Nintendo, what the fuck?  I have controllers that are older than me that still work perfectly.  The originally controller for my Xbox 360 -- the granddaddy of hardware failure -- still works perfectly.  One of my PS2 controllers went through considerable abuse and it still works great.  Even my N64 has two controllers that work well, and those are known to have crappy analog sticks.

So, again, what the flying fuck?  It wouldn't be so bad if the Wiimotes weren't the most expensive console controllers in this generation.  Glad they seem to be the least reliable ones as well (judging from how many relevant results that "broken wiimote" seems to generate, mixed in with some anger-fueled hyperbole).

[Bobbias]

Those things are seriously more expensive than they should be :/

[Spectere]

Pretty much all of the controllers are.  It's unreal.

With the Wiimote, in particular, the added cost of batteries is just insane.  I killed a pair of AAs in about 8 hours of playing Trauma Team.  In contrast, I'm probably over the 30 hour mark on my 360 controller.  The Wiimote gets more life in certain games that don't use all of its features, but considering how long the PS3 controller lasts on a small Li-Ion pack with many of the same features (the only thing that a Wiimote has that a DualShock 3 doesn't have is an infrared LED...oooh, what a power drain those things are!) it seems kind of ridiculous to me.

[Bobbias]

Well, Li-ion batteries have better Specific Energy than Ni-Cd or other common batteries for that sort of thing, which means that with the same amount of material in the battery, it will last considerably longer than a Ni-Cd would (Wikipedia says that Li-Ion batteries have a Specific Energy between 100-250 W.h/kg, while Ni-Cd batteries have between 40-60 W.h/kg)

Which is why a lot of electronics use the Li-ion batteries.

[Spectere]

The thing is, controllers should not have a high current draw.  Alkaline cells should work far better than Li-Ions or NiMH batteries in that sort of use.  In the Xbox 360 controller, for example, using alkaline AA batteries will last twice as long as a Li-Ion battery pack will.  The PS3 controller uses an internal Li-Ion pack and it doesn't last nearly long as a Xbox 360 controller with alkaline AAs.

If Li-Ion or NiMH batteries last longer in the Wiimote than alkalines, Nintendo is doing something horribly, horrible wrong.  Controllers simply should not have that high of a current draw.  If they do, using alkalines shouldn't even be an option.

There are other signs to indicate that Nintendo is doing something horribly, horribly wrong even aside from that.  Wiimotes do a good job of draining batteries even when they're off.

[OmegaOmni]

The thing is, controllers should not have a high current draw.  Alkaline cells should work far better than Li-Ions or NiMH batteries in that sort of use.  In the Xbox 360 controller, for example, using alkaline AA batteries will last twice as long as a Li-Ion battery pack will.  The PS3 controller uses an internal Li-Ion pack and it doesn't last nearly long as a Xbox 360 controller with alkaline AAs.

If Li-Ion or NiMH batteries last longer in the Wiimote than alkalines, Nintendo is doing something horribly, horrible wrong.  Controllers simply should not have that high of a current draw.  If they do, using alkalines shouldn't even be an option.

There are other signs to indicate that Nintendo is doing something horribly, horribly wrong even aside from that.  Wiimotes do a good job of draining batteries even when they're off.

How that is possible I don't even know but yeah that is all kinds of fail.

[Spectere]

There's always going to be a little bit of a trickle discharge when it comes to any electronics, particularly more "intelligent" ones.  For instance, the Wiimote, X360, and PS3 controllers all have circuitry that has to sense whether the user is holding the power button.

The problem is that, out of the three, the Wiimote seems to draw an unnecessarily large amount of power for that simple check.  In my experience, I can keep batteries in my second Xbox 360 controller for months without an issue.  If my Wiimote (well, back when it f'ing worked) had a set of batteries in it for a few months they would be nearly dead, if not completely dead.

[MortifiedocAlot]

(judging from how many relevant results that "broken wiimote" seems to generate, mixed in with some anger-fueled hyperbole).

You have to acknowledge all the assholes tossing their controllers into walls, but yeah those things are not solid at all. After the N64 sticks nothing shocks me. My god did those things suck.

[Spectere]

Most of that was from when the Wii first came out.  If you search for that, you'll see a lot of posts about strange issues, most notably accelerometer issues.  Particularly disturbing is the fact that the accelerometer issues can be resolved by -- get this -- setting the Wiimote on a table and smacking it.

Yeah, that's quality right there!

[MortifiedocAlot]

I loled pretty hard. I suppose the Nintendium mines are running dry.

[Bobbias]

You have to acknowledge all the assholes tossing their controllers into walls, but yeah those things are not solid at all. After the N64 sticks nothing shocks me. My god did those things suck.

Agreed, it made me sad that they died so quickly since the N64 had quite a few fun games.

[Spectere]

I managed to get very lucky and get an N64 controller that was barely used (in ~2005, no less!).  The analog stick was amazingly tight on it.  My second controller isn't quite as good, but it's far from the worst one I've used.

Similarly, I managed to get a Genesis controller (once again, around 2005) that had every appearance of being new.  There were zero signs of wear on it.

Not too shabby.  It seems like I'm lucky with previous generation systems.  Not so much with the newer ones. :x

[OmegaOmni]

Yeah sound like a partial short with the wii-mote Spec (oh yay for electronics stuffs I can understands [Next Block of tech school is Power Supplies as an off topic thing])

[Bobbias]

Can't be a "partial" short, either there's a short or there isn't, and honestly, if there was a short, the thing would likely just not work at all.

It's probably nintendo using cheaper parts that draw more current...