New Wii details

[B. W.]

From IGN (http://wii.ign.com/articles/718/718946p1.html)/Joystiq (http://www.joystiq.com/2006/07/17/nintendo-wiimote-details-emerge/#comments):

Controller will use AA batteries.
Battery life to last 30-60 hours.
Will use Bluetooth on a 2.4GHz bandwith to communicate with the console.
Features 6KB of "non-volatile" memory, possibly for speaker?
Uses a SYNCHRO button to identify Wii controllers that can be used with the console.
LEDs show which player is communicating with the console and illustrate battery life.
A built-in rumble motor can be turned on or off.

[slowbiz]

I'm bloody excited. Intellitext is gay and I hate it.

[Lukes Wall]

I´m on the minority of people who really like AA batteries.

[MarvynDT]

I'm wondering how the non-volatile memory would be used. I would think that volatile memory would be used to store sounds for games, but why would I care if sounds are stored in the controller after I have turned off the game. If I put another game in, than those sounds would be pointless. And 6KB isn't much, so...

[arr4ws]

AA for life!

[dotK]

I hope they release a rechargable battery pack like the 360.

[Squishead]

I hope they release a rechargable battery pack like the 360.
You never know, but rechargeable AAs will serve the purpose in the meantime.

[MasterShredder]

I wonder if there will be any 3rd party garbage controllers or if Nintendo is letting other companies make controllers as well.

[squeezee]

Having your profile stored in the controller (username, controller preferences etc.) so you could say take it over to your friends house and have it appear automatically would be a good use. Since its non-volatile and rather tiny it doesn't seem likely they'd use it as a cache for sending sounds to the speaker. Of course it could also be something mundane like storing the info it needs to communicate with the console its synched to without using battery power.

Non-rechargeable AAs are weak sauce, at least you get 30hrs of battery life.

[andypnb]

6kb is not much at all. not enough to store saved games or anything like that. so much for taking your saved games over to your friends house that way.
maybe basic profile info, or username to connect to the network.

and regular batteries will just add to the cost over time. it will make it easy to play if the batteries run out though, replace and go, rather than plug in.

[tosp]

Rechargable AA's are cheap enough - no need to complain. $20 at Walmart = 4 recharable AAs and a 15 minute charger.

The 6kb would probably used for a profile storage. There were talks of this before E3 ("Nintendo wanted everyone in the house to have their own Wiimote, of which the user's personal settings will be stored") - I remember reading that somewhere.


You forgot to mention that the controller can function as a camera, at least in some sense. It may also be how the rumours started about putting your face into that tennis game as they demonstrated at E3. For those of you looking to substantiate that, consider this.

The controller uses 3 technologies to interface with the console.

First, the accelerometers, which transmit their movement data through bluetooth (using only this, the battery life is even better than the Wavebird).

Second, you have an infrared transmitter in the controller that triangulates its position for the pointer to work with 2 infrared LEDs (1 on each side of the sensor bar for each controller).

Third, they recently added another method of detecting where the remote is in relation to the console. I'm not sure yet exactly how this works, but I think it is transmitted via Bluetooth and is used to help the pointer function be even more accurate using the camera - that's probably why the battery capacity is halved when using the pointer. Look up an agreement that Nintendo signed with a company called "PixArt" around E3-time... then visit PixArt's website and see what they make ;)

[dotK]

I bet it will save information about which Wii console it's supposed to connect to and calibration settings.

[K600]

I'm impressed with the battery life.

[[T5K]thrasher]

I'm impressed with the battery life.

If its any thing like the wavebird there under estimating as well. :)


If any thing i bet the memory on it is for storing its ID tag and the console its attached to when your swapping batterys so you dont have to re-sync it every time.

[theNoid]

I'm impressed with the battery life.

Its about the same or about less then the 360s.. but then again it has the motion sensing built it. ;) :cool:

[TheBluePill]

They will also offer a "Classic" controller (Good for use in the car) and Gun too...

http://blog.wired.com/games/cons.JPG

[slowbiz]

^^old beans

[saber07]

2.4 ghz range, hopefully wont interfere with my wireless network card, which is also in the 2.4 ghz range :\