From a Nyko spokesperson:

• Wider shape to fit hands comfortably
• Curved Z button to reduce finger slippage ("Kama side" image shows this)
• Grooves for a better grip
• Rubber battery cover
• New color scheme of C/Z buttons and analog stick

In other words, Nyko made their Kama more visually distinguished (in both textures and colors) from Nintendo's Nunchuk, though none of the controller's fundamental functionality was altered. Under this rubric, I'm pretty sure that we could release our own Wii pending it was covered in variegated, non-slip material.

The new controller has already been distributed to retailers, but we're guessing that you can still pick up the old version at a few spots if you move quickly. [BusinessWire]

Identical to the previously released versions (except for a wire sticking out of each), the wired Wing and Kama will each retail for $15. That's literally half the price of Nyko's $30 wireless versions, or $5 less than what Nintendo's officially licensed versions cost ($20). So buying these wired Nyko products won't save you a ton of money, but multiply the price times four controllers and it can bring down the cost of your hobby a bit.

Look for the wired Wing and Kama this January.

The Price: $34.99

The Verdict: Works as advertised. We spent hours going through several games, including Mario Galaxy, and the Kama plays just as well as the standard Nunchuck. It's convenient when you're playing Wii Boxing to not have the cable inbetween your two hands, but when you're playing Mario, it's not all that noticeable either way.

The downside to the Kama is having to charge yet another pair of AAs, plus the fact that you're paying a $15 premium over the standard controller. The upside is you're going entirely wireless, which looks and feels much better. It's also one or two millimeters wider than the standard Nunchuck, which is probably better for adults since the standard one is slightly too thin. Also, the trigger buttons are clear plastic.

Note: We did run into one instance when the Kama kept becoming "stuck" in one direction, always making Mario run off to the left or right. Re-sycning the two controllers didn't help, nor did taking out the batteries and rebooting them. Only shoving in a regular wired Nunchuck or resetting the Wii itself seemed to fix the problem. It probably wasn't a battery issue, since we replaced both batteries with newish ones. We only ran into this once in the entirety of our play time, however, so you shouldn't encounter this often. [Nyko]

Update: Nyko tells me that the issue might be because the unit was from an early production lot. They're sending another one for me to test and see if I can reproduce the problem.