[tawayway]

>an accelerometer in a Wii Remote

I don't think this is the best example, accelerometers were not a cheap common part at the time. The Wii predates the iPhone, MEMS accelerometers were not anywhere near as widely deployed as they are now and they cost an order of magnitude or two more.

I can remember hobbyists buying Wii Remotes after launch just to rip out the sensors :)

IMO, perfect example is the B&W LCD on the original DMG Gameboy. A generation behind the competition, but cheap and low-power for the time.

[cma]

Definitely not as widely deployed as now, but I believe they were widespread in laptops to allow shutoff of harddrives during fall detection.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

The Wii was one of the projects where another company came to them with an idea (of motion controls), IIRC.

[vanderZwan]

The Wii Remote is more an example of Iwata's Blue Ocean strategy.

The rest of the Wii hardware however..

[chrisdbaldwin]

A Gamecube with an extra chip...

[vanderZwan]

Exactly, nobody said that proven and established hardware couldn't be your own hardware after all