As time has passed I have gradually fallen out of love with the design of the Wii U - The console casing itself is quite characterless while the game pad has IMO aged about as well as the original DS.
Now it's official that Switch won't be physically backward compatible with Wii and Wii U library software, does anyone else hope and look forward to a redesigned, sleaker Wii U Mini model?
I would welcome a smaller design and less chunky game pad to keep in my collection.
Spec wise, It would need to retain HDMI output and backward compatibility with Wii discs - though preferrably without the need of a seperate Wii mode - making it the definitive machine for the Wii era; in exchange for the lack of eshop and online multiplayer support (for when Nintendo inevitably shut down the Wii U servers).
Yeah, this. They're probably already having difficulty selling the last bit of stock that is left, they're definitely not going to develop another SKU for it.
Good point. Say then it doesn't make financial sense for them invest in brand new SKU: What then? Is it reasonable to suppose Nintendo will look to do something with the millions of unsold Wii U units in circulation? Kind of like how they recalled and refurbished the 8gb white models when it became clear they were less desirable? Do you expect a massive price reduction (under £100 per unit a la Dreamcast) to clear stock?
@Tender_Cutlet Doubt there's millions of unsold Wii Us sitting on shelves. Recalling them and whatnot also costs money. Nintendo won't do anything. They'll leave the Wii U for what it is.
@Octane I'm guessing that Wii U units have never been "made to order" and read somewhere that Nintendo originally forecast selling 100m units(!) of which only 10m units have shifted. I'm not suggesting they've already developed 90m more units but doesn't it stand to reason that there are plenty of units sat gathering dust on warehouse shelves worldwide?
If the WiiU had sold like predicted, it's quite possible Nintendo could have put the cash into R&D for a revised model. But, as things went so bad, I can't see it ever happening.
Would be cool, but reading the comments here.. does sadly kinda make sense why one wouldn't be produced. I'll just have to look forward to the price drops if I want to pick one up in the future.
Can i encourage you to discuss how you've reached this conclusion?
Not an incentive to get more Wii U's into people's homes. Nintendo wants you to buy a Nintendo Switch in March 2017, not a Nintendo Wii U.
The system failed, it struggled to sell 10 million units and thus Nintendo doesn't enjoy the economies of scale that the competition does or had the financial incentive to reduce expenses with redesigns, and it remains expensive to produce thanks to the gamepad screen and the components necessary to stream video back and forth.
Nintendo has been keeping up appearances more or less for quite a while with this system, biding their time before they can launch the Switch. It wasn't to their advantage to drop the price by $50-$100, possibly start to take a loss on the direct manufacturing cost for each system produced, and possibly sell another million or two Wii U's to often unsuspecting consumers that will be disappointed to find it replaced in short order by something better.
If they couldn't even justify a redesign or significant price drop in the months leading up to the Switch, what possible reason is there now to undertake this investment? Successes that are profitable with large install bases enjoy extended post-replacement lives as budget platforms, not sales failures that lost money.
Wii U's mission was accomplished. It maintained a presence in the marketplace until the Switch and Nintendo is following through on their final promise to the Nintendo faithful that backed them by bringing us Zelda next March on day 1.
Now, all that's left is for it to disappear since it's not a profitable venture and isn't suddenly going to become one just because it's no longer Nintendo's premier home console.
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Topic: Wii U Mini
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