The end of an era

Not so long ago Nintendo Japan issued a statement to confirm that it was planning to bring Wii production to a close; this very much followed the manufacturing policy that had been taken with the GameCube to Wii transition. As we argued, however, Nintendo may be missing an opportunity by dropping the hugely successful system so soon.

An updated notice on the Wii product page now states that manufacturing has ended, suggesting that once existing stock is sold that could be the end of the system. That said, Nintendo of Europe reacted to the previous update by stating that it had no specific announcements of its own to make at that time; the widely-held assumption is that when the Kyoto headquarters made that move the effect would be worldwide — at the time of writing Nintendo of Europe's statement to us is unchanged from its previous update.

The Wii has sold over 100 million units and delivered a memorable library of games. If this is indeed the end, then the little system that dared to provide motion-based standard-definition gaming — in a perceived age of HD and FPS dominance — deserves warm praise.

[source computerandvideogames.com]