Home entertainment led to tragedy on Saturday when James Reinhart, 11, lost control of his Nintendo Wii "Wiimote" controller, which sailed across the room and struck his baby brother of 17 months.
The unexpected events occurred during an intense session of the Wii Sports Bowling game, which arrives pre-packaged with the Nintendo console.
According to the distraught pre-teen, "I was totally winning and about to bowl a strike when suddenly the control flew out of my hand and hit my brother in the face." Unfortunately, the baby, sort of, just, got in the way.
Affected families and the website Wiihaveaproblem.com are trying to warn parents of the possibly life-threatening and predatory dangers posed by Nintendo's popular low-cost video game console.
"If you see a Wii, run for your life! Or should I say, walk for your life, since running can cause paralyzing slips and deadly falls if you do it too fast," says Daniel Brown, author of Good Parents Set Safety Rules.
"Running is a terribly risky activity, fraught with terror. So is contact football, which can, and has, caused broken spines and permanent paralysis, and let's not forget the mortal risk every child faces at the bowling alley. The scent of dismemberment literally wafts through the air. Broken fingers that failed to dislodge from the bowling ball, possibly culminating in gangrene and amputation, crippling foot fractures caused by a bowling ball dropped onto one's own foot."
Sadly, parents who turned to virtual TV sports to provide a safer childhood environment than real sports were shocked to discover that Nintendo's newest videogame console poses the same risk of fatality as a game of tennis, talking a walk in a park fraught with rapists and pedophiles, or risking one's spinal cord in a swimming pool.
"No household, no family, is safe from the Wii," says Sony president Ken Kutaragi.
"And I'm not just saying that so people will buy a PS3 instead! Really I'm not!"
"Seriously, that thing is dangerous," continues Mr. Kutaragi, "Would I let my kid near one? Let's just say I'd let my kid drive a speeding four-wheeler with no headlights into the freeway 5 o'clock traffic before I'd let my kid play with a Wii."
Kutaragi suggests that parents consider the highly overpriced Playstation 3, or PS3, in which children sit docile, content, and unmoving in front of a television set for hours at at time, rather than "risk any sort of calorie-burning movement or other potential hospital emergency" with a Nintendo Wii.
The unexpected events occurred during an intense session of the Wii Sports Bowling game, which arrives pre-packaged with the Nintendo console.
According to the distraught pre-teen, "I was totally winning and about to bowl a strike when suddenly the control flew out of my hand and hit my brother in the face." Unfortunately, the baby, sort of, just, got in the way.
Affected families and the website Wiihaveaproblem.com are trying to warn parents of the possibly life-threatening and predatory dangers posed by Nintendo's popular low-cost video game console.
"If you see a Wii, run for your life! Or should I say, walk for your life, since running can cause paralyzing slips and deadly falls if you do it too fast," says Daniel Brown, author of Good Parents Set Safety Rules.
"Running is a terribly risky activity, fraught with terror. So is contact football, which can, and has, caused broken spines and permanent paralysis, and let's not forget the mortal risk every child faces at the bowling alley. The scent of dismemberment literally wafts through the air. Broken fingers that failed to dislodge from the bowling ball, possibly culminating in gangrene and amputation, crippling foot fractures caused by a bowling ball dropped onto one's own foot."
Sadly, parents who turned to virtual TV sports to provide a safer childhood environment than real sports were shocked to discover that Nintendo's newest videogame console poses the same risk of fatality as a game of tennis, talking a walk in a park fraught with rapists and pedophiles, or risking one's spinal cord in a swimming pool.
"No household, no family, is safe from the Wii," says Sony president Ken Kutaragi.
"And I'm not just saying that so people will buy a PS3 instead! Really I'm not!"
"Seriously, that thing is dangerous," continues Mr. Kutaragi, "Would I let my kid near one? Let's just say I'd let my kid drive a speeding four-wheeler with no headlights into the freeway 5 o'clock traffic before I'd let my kid play with a Wii."
Kutaragi suggests that parents consider the highly overpriced Playstation 3, or PS3, in which children sit docile, content, and unmoving in front of a television set for hours at at time, rather than "risk any sort of calorie-burning movement or other potential hospital emergency" with a Nintendo Wii.