More stoopid Wii accessories designed for people with big front rooms and no sense of personal dignity ahoy!

Yup, Nintendo is hot on the daffy Wii peripheral trail again. Not content with the inflatable horse-thing we reported recently, they’ve just filed a patent for a squishy American football controller to help gamers make their John Madden fantasies a thrilling reality. Well, nearly.

Here’s how – users insert their Wii Remote into a specially-shaped hole in the ball, strap the whole caboodle to their hands and, presto, away you go. Players can mimic the throwing actions to make in-game passes, or, as the main pic indicates, hold the ball under an arm, dodging left and right to avoid rival on-screen characters, lifting it aloft to initiate a jump or jogging on the spot to increase running speed. The device even has room to accommodate the Nunchuk or Wii MotionPlus for enhanced sensitivity.

It all sounds like a recipe for almost certain disaster to us – or at least plentiful unintentional hilarity when the ball and a complete set of Wii controllers are chucked out of the nearest open window. Also, we’re a bit puzzled that Nintendo is bothering with such silliness instead of, say, leaving it to the more novelty-minded peripheral manufacturers. But there you go. There’s no indication that the device will ever reach these shores. We live in hope, though. We live in hope...