On walls around me hung a Wii bowling ball controller attachment, a Wii pool cue, Wii pom poms and more.

Who makes this stuff? Two amiable Orthodox Jewish brothers — black pants, white shirts, beards and an offer to their guest of some kosher pastries — sat across from me, cheerful about what they’ve built and the amazing gizmos surrounding us.

I was at the second floor offices of CTA Digital, a block from where Brooklyn, New York touches the East River, in a short, aged office building. I was in the spotless show room where Leo and Sol Markowitz’s line of sometimes-ridiculous, sometimes-useful — and apparently hot-selling — attachments for the Wii and other electronics line the walls. (See their offerings online, then imagine a lot of that hanging on the walls of one room that’s also big enough for a couple of couches and a big-screen TV.)

The brothers Markowitz are some of the guys who saw in the Wii not just a gamer revolution but a chance to make money selling people things to attach to their Wii remote.

They’ve sold 200,000 units of their Wii bowling ball controller worldwide. They say they were pleased to be surrounded by the plastic products of that opportunity.

“We smelled it right away,” Leo told me, recalling his first sensations of the Wii’s imminent success.

The Wii peripheral market is big and, despite other industry slumps, growing. Of the 58.4 million gaming peripherals sold so far this year in the United States, the NPD group reports that 18.4 million of those are for the Wii. That’s up a million from the same date last year.

So even though Sol, an avowed Kotaku reader, playfully cut his brother off early in our meeting about Wii add-ons to remind him that “real gamers don’t like the Wii”, enough people do like these attachments. They like the tennis rackets and the baseball bats, the imitation light sabres and shotguns. Maybe not the pom-poms — a weak seller — but people like buying Wii peripherals and business is no joke at all. It’s good.

CTA has more than 30 employees, a warehouse in upstate New York and design and development teams in Asia. Maybe most importantly, Leo noted, “We have five people who think of things to make 24-7.”

They think of things like… the bowling ball. “Why wouldn’t you buy it?” Leo said to me, when I ask him what the point is. I argued that people had been Wii-bowling with no ball-shaped shell around their controller just fine.

It makes the game fun for plenty of people, Sol said. “It makes it more exciting.” He knows that “real gamers” won’t care as much.

This bowling ball was a dream project, a year in the making and spurred by research that showed them that Wii Sports bowling is the most popular activity on Nintendo’s console.

“We all knew that whoever comes out with bowling, it’s going to be huge,” Leo recalled.

Those CTA engineers got to work, trying to craft a bowling ball something-or-other that could fit around a Wii Remote. They didn’t want people to chuck a bowling ball controller through their TV, so they tried to design a bowling ball shell that wouldn’t function if you didn’t wear the shell’s wrist strap. Couldn’t get it to work right, Sol said. They settled on a design that has two wrist straps and is sealed with a sticker that must be broken in order to first encase a Wii remote in it. You rip that, you assume the risks.

The bowling ball’s good, though it’s holes are positioned only for right-handed bowlers. An ambidextrous design hadn’t worked. But have no fear, fellow southpaws. “We probably will get into the left-handed business,” Leo told me.

I met with the Markowitz men and a helpful colleague for over an hour. Leo repeatedly bounded from his seat on a couch across from me to grab secret prototype after secret prototype of CTA gaming add-ons that will make the bowling ball seem pedestrian. They’re secret still, but they’re wild.

CTA’s been in this business for 16 years, Sol explained. They started with mobile phone add-ons, then moved on to iPod attachments. Now they do gaming add-ons too, like PlayStation 3 chat pads, Xbox 360 cooling devices and iPhone steering wheels. The Wii’s been the big one for them lately, and gaming’s up to a quarter of their business, though they won’t say how much money CTA makes. They sell their attachments worldwide to electronics stores that once ignored them or shunned gaming.

They say that even Bed Bath & Beyond is on board now. The brothers recalled that the retailer — not exactly a gaming powerhouse — consented last Christmas season to trying to sell 30,000 of CTA’s Wii add-ons, simple things like controller charge stations, and sold almost all of them. The retailer asked for more — asked for the top sellers, even. So, the brothers told Kotaku, CTA has sold Beth Bath & Beyond Wii Sports kits to sell and even a Wii controller shotgun. No word if it’s sold next to shower curtains.

Leo showed me a smart one: A belt and holster designed to hold a Wii Remote for users of Wii Fit. He rightly pointed out that the game requires players to use the Remote to start their exercising but then forces them to either put it down or needlessly hold it as they work out on the Wii Balance Board. The holster holds the Remote, freeing the user’s hands. And it swivels, letting someone point the Remote to navigate menus without having to un-holster it. That seemed to address a Wii Fit user-interface issue.

I asked the brothers if they saw themselves as being in the problem-solving business, the fun business or — gesturing to the Wii Music Kit that lets you embed the Wii remote into shells shaped like a violin, a trumpet, a dog paw — the novelty business.

“We see what the problem is [with a game] and figure out what we can make for it,” Leo began.

“We are in the fun business,” Sol cut in.

Leo laughed. “We’re in the business to sell and make money.”

CTA’s bowling ball controller may make the company stand out, but they are not the only creators of imaginative Wii add-ons. Mad Catz makes controller shells shaped like Ubisoft’s Rabbids characters. Nyko director of marketing Chris Arbogast told Kotaku that one of his company’s most creative Wii add-ons was going to be their Party Station: “a combination charging station/beverage container/chip bowl”. It’s not coming out. “Although it generated a lot of buzz and consumer response, it was not cost effective to produce and was tabled.”

Arbogast noted that some of the more imaginative controllers, while fun or aesthetically pleasing, don’t fit his company’s strategy. “We decided on particular accessories that allowed us to incorporate new technology or offer features that were not previously available, like button relocation on our Action Pak pistol grip or rumble in our Kama.” Their next big product is their new Charge Base IC.

CTA is well aware that some of this wilder stuff doesn’t work. The Wii Music kit has been a slow seller, not helped by relatively slow sales of Wii Music.

The brothers seem undeterred. They say that their new Wii Sports Resort kit, which includes a bow-and-arrow add-on, a Jet-Ski-style handlebar and even a Frisbee shell, is selling great.

And don’t worry, those of you who might feel you’re too cool for these kinds of attachments. Leo and Sol are making some products for you in mind too. Just wait. Brooklyn’s keeping busy.

The US$25 price isn’t outrageous at all, but surely you can look like a goober for less!

Nyko’s DSi Zoom Case is A Little Bit On The Ridiculous Side (but I still want one) [Albotas]

Mark over at Gizmodo has spent some quality time with three devices – the official Wii Remote, along with Nyko & Mad Catz’s offerings – and after putting all three through their paces, shares his thoughts.

At the end of the day, the Wii Remote emerges as the device with the best performance. Not surprising. Yet it’s worth considering that both competing devices are not only cheaper (Nyko’s Wand is $US35 while the Mad Catz Wireless Remote is $US30), but aren’t as shoddy as you’d expect, with only some IR issues on both remotes really holding them back.

Battlemodo: The Wiimote vs. The Cheap Knockoffs [Gizmodo]

Nyko shows off exactly what their Trans-Port technology can do with the introduction of a vibrating nunchuck attachment and gun controller for their Nintendo remote alternative, the Wand.

Announced at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year, Nyko’s Wand is a replacement for the standard Wii remote that uses electronic triggers instead of mechanical ones to transmit data to attached devices. What exactly does that mean? It means your nunchuck can rumble.

The Wired Kama is a wired version of Nyko’s wireless nunchuck controller which, unlike the standard Nintendo nunchuck, can vibrate along with the Wand in games that support vibration feedback. It’s only a small difference from the shipping standard, but as Sony’s original Sixaxis controller for the PlayStation 3 taught us, a little rumble goes a long way.

Along with the Wired Kama, Nyko has also announced the Pistol Grip, a light gun controller for the Wand that forgoes the clunky mechanical parts of the Wii Zapper accessory in favour of electronics that map the trigger and hammer of the gun to the Wand’s A and B buttons, which should result in a more solid light-gun experience, for those of you looking for such.

Both the Wired Kama and the Pistol Grip will ship packed in with the Nyko Wand in June of this year, with a suggested retail price of US$49.99. Not a bad price to pay for a little innovation.

Back in June, Nintendo filed a lawsuit against Nyko claiming that their Kama wireless controller “wholly appropriates the novel shape, design, overall appearance and even the colour and materials used in the Nintendo Nunchuk controller”.

Nyko was quick to respond with an imagined shrug and some head-scratching, saying “”We have not knowingly violated anyone’s intellectual property and we’re still examining this.”

Today the two companies say they’ve worked out a deal (read royalty checks) and that Nyko is redesigning their controller.

“We are pleased to have resolved this dispute,” said Nintendo of America President and COO Reggie Fils-Aime. “The Nunchuk and Wii brands are familiar to consumers worldwide, and Nintendo is dedicated to vigorous defence of those brands.”

“Nyko Technologies is proud to be an industry leader in gaming accessories,” said Herschel Naghi, CEO of Nyko, “and we will continue to develop exciting products for the benefit of the gaming community.”

The Wing features gobs of buttons and up to 10-feet of wireless connectivity via a dongle you plug into the botton of your Wii Remote. The Wing also lets you use rechargeable AAA batteries which can be charged through the Wing’s mini USB port.

“The Wing is a great example of what we at Nyko aim to do: improve the gamer’s experience with a quality made product”, said Chris Arbogast, Director of Marketing at Nyko Technologies. “There have been very few options for classic gaming control designed specifically for the Wii until now, and the Wing provides a comfortable and affordable wireless alternative that fans of Virtual Console games will enjoy using.”

The controller sells for $US30.

But if I hadn’t gotten booted, maybe I would’ve been able to make this…

Look like this:

That right there is a papercraft version of the new Wing controller for the Wii, made by Nyko. Normally, I wouldn’t blog about third-party controllers – but I was lured to this press event by the residual guilt I feel at being cast out of arts and crafts all those years ago, and by the promise of hands-on with Mega Man 9.

Well, Nyko delivered. I got my time with Mega Man 9, although it was the same build Capcom demoed at E3 (where they were caught on live feed by IGN, epically failing at their own game, apparently). And I also got to try out their new controller – which syncs with your Wii mote to take the place of that itsy-bitsy Classic Controller.

I wasn’t too impressed with Mega Man 9 – but that’s just because I hate dying over and over again until I learn something. As evidenced by getting kicked out of arts and crafts, I hate learning.

But I do dig the retro graphics and I’m really looking forward to the evil robot chick. It’s about time Mega Man had some gender equality in the villain lineup. According to Capcom PR dude Tim Ng, there were going to be two female robot villains – but the second girl was scrapped because the developers didn’t want fans to feel like the series was changing too much. (Oooh, scary! Two grils!)

Something that needed to change, though, was that Classic Controller. It’s just too damned retro. We didn’t like the SNES controllers all that much to begin with (which is why they evolved into N64 controllers), so why shove a throwback down our throats when we want to play retro games?

The Wing is out this October and look for Mega Man 9 this month.

The thing when I demoed Wii Sport Resort I noticed that the controller was longer now and asked Nintendo if the charger would still work. Ask Nyko was their reply, so I did.

Unfortunately, it won’t work, at least not while the Wii Motion Plus device is attached. The Nyko guys told me they were already looking at ways to solve the problem. They added that they believe the Wii Motion Plus attachment doesn’t contain batteries, meaning it likely draws power from the Remote, which would likely reduce the battery life for the controller.

Bad news all around.

Somehow I don’t think that’s their natural hair colour.