For Wii Players, a Swing and an Unexpected Hit

Nintendo is offering to replace the Wii game controller's wrist strap. (Nintendo Via Associated Press)

Nintendo's new game console has been flying off the shelves at retail stores across the country this season. And some game fans are reporting that the Wii's controller has been flying, somewhat unexpectedly, across their living rooms.

The company offered this week to replace a wrist strap included with the new console after reports that Wii controllers had slipped from players' hands and, in some cases, into TV screens and windows.

Released last month, Wii uses an innovative controller that lets people replicate the actual motion of hitting a ball when playing, for example, a tennis or baseball game.

The strap is designed to keep the controller anchored to a player's wrist, but some users have reported that it's too fragile and can break after a few vigorous sessions.

Reports of broken windows and cracked TV screens have filled gamer blogs, but the stories already have earned a certain mythic status on the Web. When one site posted a picture this week of a player with a Wii-related black eye, another site debunked it as a work of Photoshop fakery.

One game fan, Jim Walsh of Akron, Ohio, has launched a site -- http://www.wiihaveaproblem.com-- to chronicle the injuries. If he gets his own Wii for Christmas, "maybe I'll put some Plexiglass in front of my TV or something," he said.

Wii owners can find information about the replacement strap at http://www.nintendo.com.