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Nintendo Announces $99 Wii Mini For US Release
Zothecula writes "Nintendo recently announced that it was ceasing all production of its original Wii video game console. It seemed as if it had run its course, and Nintendo was shifting 100 percent of its focus to the floundering Wii U. Turns out, the Japanese company had other plans, announcing that its previously Canada-exclusive $99 Wii Mini is making its way to the U.S. 'The $99 price has been neglected in this product generation, but in the past, it has been a very successful price for game consoles. More than half of the volume of machines in the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 generations sold at the $99 or under price."
Now I can get a Wii that takes up less room in my closet.
It's barely smaller than the regular Wii (it can't be, since it has to be big enough to fit a DVD), it does less, and costs pretty much the same. Why not just keep selling the regular Wii?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
It doesn't really seem like a very traditional Nintendo move. The top-loader NES did away with the click-down cartridge, the Advance SP offered a backlight and rechargable battery. Gameboy Color brought color into the games. The DS Lite offered several advantages over the original DS.
What does the Wii Mini do that brings something new to the table?
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
the $99 price point is pretty enticing for someone who's not into hardcore gaming..
"lacks YPBPR (component video/d-terminal) and s-video output, Nintendo GameCube compatibility, online gaming, the SD card slot and Wi-Fi support"
...
The Wii Mini doesn't have GameCube support and doesn't have Wi-Fi. Thus far, that's mainly what my Wii has been: a GameCube that streams NetFlix.
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
So there's only two groups who will be interested in the Wii Mini. Those who don't use the internet, and those who do but were planning on hacking the console (possibly for piracy). The former seems unlikely to be interested in video games, and the latter is the exact market Nintendo isn't interested in.
Take the software we use to crack your devices and make it that way from the gate.
PSP-3000 is $99 on Amazon. It has better graphics and more features, and it doesn't hurt that it's portable too. Like the Wii, it has a great lineup with lots of titles still on the market, and including several beloved classics (especially if you like RPG's).
I love my Wii. I got it two years ago on sale for $99 ($150 plus a free $50 gift card), and it was worth the money. Wii Mini sounds cool, but from what I read it's been butchered to hell: no SD storage, no Wifi, no Virtual Console, no GC compatibility, nothing. This is a terrible mockery of the Wii; you think you're saving a few bucks, but you lose practically all of the Wii's value. Just buy a regular Wii if you don't have one--get a used one if if you want to save money.
Any content you've purchased on one Wii is stuck there forever in most cases. Nintendo won't transfer digital purchases unless you have documentation showing your original Wii was stolen, and that's iffy. Why people keep paying for the same, tired rehash of their game catalog and obvious abuse of the platform is beyond me.
"Powers. I have them."
I'm just waiting for the PS3 and maybe XBox to drop to the $99 price point. I couldn't care less about the a smaller Wii.
The fact it doesn't have internet is going to be a plus for parents. Now they can let their kids play games without having to worry about listening to a tirade of profanity from half way around the world. The older people that play this, probably aren't getting on-line either.
It's also about $50 cheaper than the full size Wii which is the price of a Mario game.
For cost conscious parents whose kids don't have a modern video game system yet, this is a solid option for Christmas. There is a huge library of excellent titles for the Wii. The LEGO games are all about $20 now, there are plenty of very popular Wii games that are $20 now.
If I didn't already have a Wii, I'd buy it. While I use the Virtual Console, I could live without it. It's not an essential feature for the system. I just buy the old classics, Something that most kids don't care about.
Work Safe Porn
Before you complain about the Mini being a butchered Wii, just realize that Nintendo are not going after serious console buyers here or people flush with cash. Those people might have bought a Wii U or are waiting for the XBox One or PS 4. Nintendo is going after people looking for a bargain but who don't want a used machine (these people do exist). They are serving people who don't demand the latest and greatest from a console and who will pay $99 to play the awesome games you could get on Nintendo's old system. The thing Nintendo knows is that when it sells a console, it will sell games for that console. So a Wii Mini probably represents four or five games going out the door as first sales in the next year as well. And I am pretty sure nobody sells more titles for Nintendo consoles than Nintendo itself. This is a play to make some more money on the backend of the Wii's life. Its a smart move to trim the cost of the Wii and keep selling machines and the games that play on them. And some of these people might turn into Wii U buyers when they have more money.
But if you have a 5 year old who just wants to play a Mario game, you may not even want internet connectivity.
I was under the impression that Dr. Mario Online Rx was available only through the online Wii Shop.
People are born every day, teenagers become adults every day
Used full-feature Wii consoles that support buying games from Wii Shop Channel are removed from closet storage and sold on eBay every day.
The only way to play The Legend of Zelda "without needing to emulate" is by owning an NES. Any NES game stored on a GameCube Game Disc is running in acNES, the emulator that Nintendo developed for the NES games buried in Animal Crossing. I don't know whether the Virtual Console emulator is descended from acNES, but I can identify acNES by the muffled electrocution sound in Balloon Fight.
So there's only two groups who will be interested in the Wii Mini. Those who don't use the internet, and those who do but were planning on hacking the console (possibly for piracy).
Since Wii Menu 3.3 fixed the strncmp bug in Disc Channel, all exploits that I know of to get the installer for the Homebrew Channel running use SD cards. No SD slot means no homebrew.
I guess they are offering it removing the Weather and New channel :)
I suspect that the real reason that they have dropped wireless networking support is that Nintendo screwed up, royally, with the original design. The present Wii has an 802.11b/g wireless adapter built-in. Due to flaws in its software implementation, however, it is only capable of working when the 802.11 (legacy mode) basic rates of 1 Mb/s and 2 Mb/s are advertised by an access point. This means that 802.11b support, an additive amendment to the 802.11 standard, must be enabled on an access point for a Wii to be able to connect to it. As a cost cutting measure, the drivers were embedded in to the games themselves making this largely unfixable without some incredibly ugly engineering hacks. They have obviously decided not to bother. See: http://nostringsattachedshow.com/2012/01/18/nintendo-vs-cisco/
Just because a regular Wii has the ability to connect to the Internet, doesn't mean you have to use that ability.
I have a very hard time believing that the wi-fi chip is so expensive that by removing it Nintendo can charge $50 less and maintain a similar profit margin. They might as well have just left it in and priced it at $109 or something.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
"Wii mini is not compatible with the Internet and will not allow online functionality when playing games"
I would have bought one if not for this. I have friends online who play Mario Kart Wii with each other, and I would like to join in too, but I don't want to pay a lot for a Wii that I'd only use to play one game.
Don't strip it down, but enhance it. Enable 720p on the machine and relaunch as a media player AND gaming system. Do it right and you can grab up some of those sales that are going to Roku and the like.
just a thought.
wtf? this is 2013. refrigerators can have internet access.
that limitation will doom this with horrid press, reviews and word of mouth here in the usa.. cuz that's what we do best.. bitch, whine, complain, over-sensationalize, and then, just for good measure, bitch some more and promise never to buy their shitty products again (which, of course, we almost always never adhere to)
Regular, barely-used Wii are like $40 tops at yard sales, flea markets, etc. They work fine and normally have all the stuff this Mini lacks. Like, I dunno, what the hell does a Wii DO again? That Mii thing?
Well, OK old Wii aren't red. Boo hoo. $3 worth of spray paint will fix that up.
Still leaves $57 for pizza and drinks to entice your friends to come over and get bored quick playing some group game that is not actually fun.
Sig for hire.
This is probably the Wii's last Christmas before Nintendo rides it off into the sunset. In a way, this bundle is priced very aggressively, as the combined retail cost of the pack-ins is equal to the cost of the total system. If you wanted to add a Wii Remote and Nunchuk to your existing Wii or Wii U, you're already over half way to the Wii Mini. Add in Mario Kart (if you don't already have it) and the console is free. You're breaking even, even if you stash it in your closet Christmas night. At any rate, by the time the Holiday shopping season really gets into swing after Black Friday, the Wii Mini will be it, particularly at Big Box stores that turn their inventory quickly. This thing will ring up some sales this Christmas, as it's under $100 for a turn-key video-game system, and the economy is still shit. After Christmas, it's gimped-ness, combined with unavailability of the "legacy" Wii, will serve to up-sell folks to Wii U. Of course, Nintendo could help themselves out in that regard by lopping some more cost off the Wii U.
of shovelware - hardware.
I bet the Ouya is doing very well in Japan.
Home of development, keen on lots of games, and several of it's launch titles have an anime styling.
But why did they also drop support for their USB ethernet adaptor?
No problem! All they need to do is release some of their Virtual Console NES games onto the Wii disk format, and then the retro nerds will buy them all over again! It has so far worked for Sega, who I think has now put their Genesis back catalog on every device known to existence.
The other players play like humans. Computer controlled players don't.
Computers drive like computers. Humans drive like motherfscking snakes in a motherfscking kart.