Wall Street Journal takes on Wiimote hacking

by Christopher Grant { Apr 29th 2007 at 6:26PM }

The Wall Street Journal has a brief piece -- and an even briefer video accompaniment -- covering Wiimote hacking of all things. Notable: they're calling it the "Wii-mote," not Wii Remote. Even more notable: the article's front page status!

The Wii continues its mainstream media march, with the WSJ making their way to all the things we've been enjoying for months: Wiimote air guitar; air drums; Wii DJing; Wii loop machine ... and we're just scratching the surface. A very dry Nintendo spokesperson said, simply, "The Wii Remote was created to play on the Wii system only." Oh yeah? And we bet the NES controller wasn't meant to be a cell phone, TV remote, or dockable iPod controller either!

Tags: wiimote, wiimotehacks, WSJ

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Patrick @ Apr 29th 2007 6:35PM

best part is the ps3 grill

Charron @ Apr 29th 2007 6:52PM

I've always found just the capacity to use the Wiimote on a PC as being great for the small developers, when it comes to designing and testing. They can figure out if a game idea is fun or not with the Wiimote without ever having to get a dev. kit, so when they finally do they're not left wondering if their idea will work or not. I'm sure someone's done the same with the 360 controller, since it works on a computer just fine as well. I mean, I've found a bunch of freeware games that work great with the Wiimote, and when I get around to hacking together little games I can test them with it too. Couldn't have done that without the controller being as universal.

hvnlysoldr @ Apr 29th 2007 6:52PM

Truly the Ken Kutaragi Grill was the best part.

orAngeMicro @ Apr 29th 2007 6:55PM

yeah lets use the wii for everything under the sun EXCEPT GAMING!!!!!! THERE ARE NO GAMES!!!!!

Splinter @ Apr 29th 2007 7:13PM

"Theres no doubting the popularity of Nintendo's Wii"

LOL!!! Nintendo's Wii is pretty nice...

Rubang B @ Apr 29th 2007 7:31PM

Haha good one orangemicro! High five you wacky troll you!

MSaccarello @ Apr 29th 2007 7:48PM

the wiimote in the helmet was the dumbest thing i've ever seen. at least to be used to play baseball.

Alex @ Apr 29th 2007 8:23PM

PS3 grill takes the prize

I'd try to use my reconfigure my wiimote on oter things too but Im afraid to damage it, they, along with the system, are hard to find in stores.

LongshotX @ Apr 29th 2007 8:38PM

I understand the DS selling out but the Wii? Still do not get it.

hvnlysoldr @ Apr 29th 2007 8:38PM

It just hit me. The ultimate mod would be using the wiimote as a spatula on the Kutaragi Grill.

Daniel @ Apr 29th 2007 9:01PM

I just started using the classic controller on my PC. You can set it up as a regular directinput controller using glovepie and ppjoy. It even supports the analog triggers.

It works well enough... I wish it wasn't tethered to the wiimote.

Roflgoat @ Apr 29th 2007 9:07PM

They used the ThinkGeek WiiHelm!!!!
HAHAHAHAHAAHHAAH

That made my day.

mo @ Apr 29th 2007 9:16PM

im so glad some one finally found use for the PS3

Paviel @ Apr 29th 2007 9:46PM

In case anyone is actually interested in this particular use for the PS3, go ahead and have a look at this website:

http://therealps3grill.com/

My apologies if nobody is...

ElGato @ Apr 29th 2007 9:56PM

While Joystiq would remark on WSJ's use of "Wiimote" insetad of "Wii Remote", as a sign of the publication's hipness, they should also remark on the video using ThinkGeek's WiiHelm, their April's Fools joke on the Wii community.

Had they done their research a little more, WSJ wouldn't have included that clip (unless they knew it was a joke, in which case they're journalistic integrity is in question for not mentioning it as such). Luckily, they didn't include it in the article as well.

On another note, is it really "hacking" if all one does is repurpose the signals the remote is sending out?

Sidepocket @ Apr 30th 2007 12:07AM

@ ElGato

Hacking = Taking control of a system and make it do what it was not originaly intended to do.

Wiimote was intended to play games. Hackers took the Bluetooth signals and repurpused them to non-game use. Hence its hacking.

samfish @ Apr 29th 2007 11:43PM

Nintendo should just swallow their pride and officially rename the thing to 'Wiimote'.

Then we can debate endlessly over whether it should be spelled 'Wiimote' or 'Wii-mote'.

orAngeMicro @ Apr 30th 2007 1:08AM

i love you sidepocket you make the internet do better

S @ Apr 30th 2007 1:21AM

@MSaccarello:

You wouldn't think it were dumb if you were paralyzed or an amputee.

SWAT Doctor @ Apr 30th 2007 6:48AM

One of my University lecturers uses a Wii Remote to scroll through his powerpoint presentations.

Tasteless @ Apr 30th 2007 2:04PM

The ThinkGeek WiiHelm would be great for a next-gen Bonk's Adventure game.

J44xm @ Apr 30th 2007 4:37AM

At the end, there ... watching an embedded WSJ video of a YouTube video -- that's deep.

Rubang B @ Apr 30th 2007 6:00AM

Hahaha the Wii is for voting and internet and hacking the remote and no games!
Hahaha the PS3 is for Blu-Ray and folding and no games!
Hahaha the 360 is for HD DVDs and breaking and no games!

That is my comment. Discuss.

Tim @ Apr 30th 2007 9:15AM

@Alex

As has been said before, Wiimote "hacking" requires only a Bluetooth PC connection and some software drivers.

@samfish

"Wiimote" wins hands down. We didn't throw away the official name just to have a lousy hyphen cluttering it up.

@sidepocket

I think the term "hacking" has gotten a bit ambiguous between the terms software hacking and hardware hacking.