So I survived the Xbox meltdown meme of 2005 and was only mildly affected by 360 crashes – none of my games spontaneously scratched themselves to oblivion and I never saw the ‘ring of death’. My Nintendo DS never cracked down the middle. I even managed to make it through Christmas without committing child abuse with a Wii remote.
But last night, when I least suspected (or appreciated) it, my Wii began to ignore me. I picked up a remote and pressed the power button to start the console, lights flashed on the remote but then went out again. Suspecting dead batteries from the festive season’s wild flailings I slotted in a new set of Vartas but to no avail.
The second remote caught my eye. Grasping the controller in my sweaty palm, I eagerly pressed ON. Well, actually I pressed the ‘O with a little I in the middle’ button but the effect was the same… Flashing lights then nothing. I downed a Red Bull, conceding that leaving the sofa would now be unavoidable.
Manually powering on the Wii with my atrophied index finger, I held down the Bluetooth sync button for 15 seconds to reset the controller assignments and then tried to resync the remotes. Both exhibited the same behaviour, all four lights flash for about half a minute then stop, makes no difference if I press sync on the console during this time or not.
Checking the forums gave me some additional ideas and a deep seated fear of speling rite. Still no brightly coloured hands floating round the screen. My Wii is useless without its remotes, I can’t even open Donkey Kong Country to play it with my Gamecube controller.
So, helpful and multitudinous readers, is my only recourse to return my Wii and second Wiimote to the manufacturer? The idea of waiting for an RMA number and packing all that stuff off to the Post Office is quite unappetising. But don’t y’all worry that I’ll get bored, the 360 still works and the last bad guy on Gears of War needs another few hundred headshots before he’ll f*cking die… mutter…
