With the rolling launch of the Wii U now underway, Nintendo has confirmed that they have nothing else in the pipeline for the Wii and are ready for the console to enter into the final stages of its lifecycle.
GameSpot asked Bill Trinen, Nintendo’s director of marketing, if the company had any internal projects underway to support the Wii. Trinen responded “No… not right now”, adding:
“Wii itself is really interesting because there are so many people who have that system and know what that system is that there’s still a lot of opportunity for software sales on Wii. A lot of that consumer is somebody who is looking for…good games. So whether it’s things like Nintendo Selects or a lot of the users also are still using their Wii to deliver Netflix content. I think there’s also the potential for a lot of people who still haven’t purchased Wii, believe it or not, who might be interested at the right price. So we’ll probably be looking at it more from that standpoint.”
The statement is hardly a surprise, and to be honest Nintendo would be foolish if they continued to divert resources away from the 3DS and Wii U towards the aging Wii. With that said, it is still a bit of a sad moment for one of the most amazing and divisive consoles ever released.
For the last couple of years my launch-day Wii has been little more than a Netflix/Hulu streaming device, although it still sees a decent amount of playtime from my daughters who have recently discovered the joy of Super Smash Bros. on the virtual console.
Even though my Wii usage has declined drastically, I still consider it to be one of the most enjoyable consoles that I’ve ever owned (and I’m old, so that is saying something) due to the countless hours of entertainment that it provided with titles such as; Super Mario Galaxy (1 &2), No More Heroes (1&2), Muramasa: The Demon Blade, Call of Duty: Black Ops (IR pointer controls FTW), Donkey Kong Country Returns, LostWinds (1&2), and many more.
Sure, Nintendo’s little white SD box had its share of faults, but the Wii proved that it doesn’t necessarily take a ton of computing horsepower to provide an entertaining video game experience.
