New Wii Announced. No Gamecube Support (New Colour)

[Sheikah]

It just looks like a Wii that's fallen over.

[Fierce_LiNk]

It just looks like a Wii that's fallen over.

 

Yeah, and all the Gamecube functionality has fallen out of it.

[Ashley]

Stupid move IMO.

 

Completely unnecessary and will just serve to further confuse the public regarding the Wii U when it's released. The consoles now look near identicle and will make Wii U seem no more than an update/peripheral... in much the same way Nintendo failed to initially differentiate the 3DS enough to those not clued up.

 

Nintendo has said that lessons have been learnt from the 3DS, which presumably includes the differentiation (hence the new adverts).

 

And don't forget the Wii U console design isn't final. Not that I imagine it will change too much but it could be tweaked still.

[Retro_Link]

Yeah that true... it is funny how blunt the new 3DS adverts are "This isn't DS..."

 

Ideally the WiiU would have a redesign and a name change before launch, but we all know how stubborn/blinkered Nintendo can be!

[Jamba]

if this was sold around the £60 mark it will shift loads, i woudl have preffered a gold zelda ltd edition console tho

 

I'd be interested to see where the price lands. Honestly though, this suggests to me that the Wii U is further away than I had originally thought.

 

Isn't also a bit of a piss take that if sold for £60, then Nintendo would be selling a console for half the price of a handheld

[Ashley]

I can't imagine them knocking off more than £10. The market their aiming for don't know the value of the slimmed down version they'll just see "oh its a bit cheaper but it doesn't play... Jimcube games? Whatever they are. SOLD!"

 

Let's face it. The majority of current Wii owners probably don't own any GameCube games yet alone care about them.

[Retro_Link]

What's the Wii selling for £109.99?

 

Yeah this will probably go for £99.99, or maybe if they're just trying to flog them £79.99!

[Fierce_LiNk]

What's the Wii selling for £109.99?

 

Yeah this will probably go for £99.99, or maybe if they're just trying to flog them £79.99!

 

Haha, flog them. Who's selling them? Nintendo or Del Boy?

 

Although, this device does seem like something Del Boy would try to flog. Except, I'm not sure if his version would even have the disc drive.

[daftada]

Why are people getting so angry over this?? It's pretty normal for manufacturers to bring out slimmed down versions of console late in their life, and how many casual gamers (clearly the demographic Nintendo are going for) play cube games or actually care that backwards compatability's been removed.

 

Nintendo will be switching production lines to making Wii U units pretty soon, by trimming down the Wii they can make them quicker and cheaper and continue to sell them for the next year or so, alongside Wii U. Look at the long-tail sales of PS & PS2 and you'll see Nintendo are trying to do the same thing: get casuals to buy cheap low-end unit, in a year or two they upgrade to high-end console.

 

The way some people out there have reacted you'd think Nintendo have just set fire to a bag of puppies or something.

 

Chill out, put down your angry stick, play Xenoblade.

[Aneres11]

Why are people getting so angry over this?? It's pretty normal for manufacturers to bring out slimmed down versions of console late in their life, and how many casual gamers (clearly the demographic Nintendo are going for) play cube games or actually care that backwards compatability's been removed.

 

Nintendo will be switching production lines to making Wii U units pretty soon, by trimming down the Wii they can make them quicker and cheaper and continue to sell them for the next year or so, alongside Wii U. Look at the long-tail sales of PS & PS2 and you'll see Nintendo are trying to do the same thing: get casuals to buy cheap low-end unit, in a year or two they upgrade to high-end console.

 

The way some people out there have reacted you'd think Nintendo have just set fire to a bag of puppies or something.

 

Chill out, put down your angry stick, play Xenoblade.

 

You're missing the point of what a lot of people are saying.

 

Releasing a 'streamlined' new Wii (its thin enough, Jesus) doesn't seem like a smart move to some of us because with a new item tends to come new advertising.

Nintendo are good over the Christmas season to push their products as they tend to do well at that time.

 

However, sometime next year they are releasing the WiiU.

Which just so happens to look almost identical to the current Wii - only rounded. So it's still white, still has the slit for discs - presumably lights up blue and blinds you in the middle of the night - still has the flip down slot for SD card, sync button etc and still has power and eject buttons. All in the SAME GODAMN PLACE NINTENDO!!

 

The issue here, is that a lot of people are going to think that this new WiiU is the same console with a new big controller. And why the bloody hell wouldn't they. They've tacked a U on the end and it looks virtually identical.

This then, could be a problem for Nintendo. The same problem they have had with the 3ds. That price cut that's just happened? That's pretty much down to the fact that no one knows its a new console that is a major upgrade from the DS. Partly coz of the launch games, but also partly because its the 3...DS... A DS that shows 3d then?

It's not been marketed correctly.

 

In order to avoid this again with the WiiU - Nintendo have to be smart. And releasing a slim Wii will only serve to confuse people when the WiiU is released. Unless of course Nintendo learn from the mistakes with the 3DS which I hope they will.

This doesn't fill us with much hope though.

Unfortunately Nintendo almost need the casual market to latch onto the WiiU in the same way the 'core' will to ensure they meet whatever targets they set themselves when the WiiU is released.

Perhaps that's part of the reason the design is similar - so the casuals will see it as a worthy upgrade and adopt it early on. If they instantly feel at home with the design as its something they are used to and know how to use then who knows.

Edited August 18, 2011 by Aneres11

[Jimbob]

I don't see the need to release a new model Wii, not this close to the Wii-U release. This is a waste of resources and a waste of time. Like some have said, people who would have wanted a Wii would have a Wii by now.

 

Lack of GC support for this. Well, it wouldn't bother those who didn't use it on the existing Wii or didn't see a need for it. Those, like many of us do, care about being able to play GC on the Wii. Using the GC pad makes it cheaper to play titles like Mario Kart and Smash Brothers with friends.

[Dante]

I guess people have not heard about the new PSP on here which is has things removed from it as well.

[Jamba]

The issue here, is that a lot of people are going to think that this new WiiU is the same console with a new big controller. And why the bloody hell wouldn't they. They've tacked a U on the end and it looks virtually identical.

This then, could be a problem for Nintendo. The same problem they have had with the 3ds. That price cut that's just happened? That's pretty much down to the fact that no one knows its a new console that is a major upgrade from the DS. Partly coz of the launch games, but also partly because its the 3...DS... A DS that shows 3d then?

It's not been marketed correctly.

 

So the issue is with the WiiU then, not this slimlined Wii surely?

 

Nintendo won't even advertise this as a separate product, in exactly the way the Sony cutely removed it's backwards compatibility early on. All it means is that there is technically a different SKU but will be treated the same (possibly with the same price).

 

What you should be reading is that Nintendo want a bigger profit margin.

[daftada]

JimBob - it's quite the opposite; nintendo are saving time and money removing components. They still need to make wii units up to and beyond the wii u launch, now they'll just be using less production resources to make them.

 

Anares - we still don't know how nintendo are going to market wii u to the mass market, but keeping the wii branding isn't a bad move, look at the PlayStation and Game Boy brands. I agree they need the need to differentiate it a bit more (calling it wii 2 probably would have been a simpler way to show this is an upgrade), but having familiar designs doesn't mean people won't be able to tell them apart. All this is conjecture at this stage anyway and hardly worth getting worked about!

[Beverage]

If I were to point out small, differing features of the current Wii and the newly-configured Wii design then it'd be that the new design would have landed in grey paint when it fell on its side. Also, it looks to be a bit more square and maybe slightly sharpened. Add to this that the 'cube ports are gone and the power, reset, eject and Wii labels have been shifted a little. Am I also correct in suggesting that perhaps on the newly configured Wii box it'd may have 'redesigned Wii' sribbled over it somewhere?

 

As for the Wiiu, it'd be exactly like the redesigned Wii but this time with 'Brand Spanking New Iteration/Successor of Wii' on the box and it'd look a hell of a lot more rounded and smoother. I am aware that it is quite likely that it'd get a little tweaking as the main focus was on the upad and "we all can roughly have an idea as to what's in the box" so it wasn't really being bigged-up. So maybe E3 '12 it'd be the machine in the spotlight with it's all important styley case.

I think the casuals'll be chuffed to know that the Wiiu will be fully backward compatible with all their current Wiiz.

Edited August 19, 2011 by Beverage

[Burny]

Am I also correct in suggesting that perhaps on the newly configured Wii box it'd may have 'redesigned Wii' sribbled over it somewhere?

Hardly. What's the point? It does exactly the same things as the old Wii, it just comes with different games and hopefully at a slightly lower price.

 

Yes, it does not play Gamecube games. In order to tell this to parents looking for presents this Christmas though, Nintendo would likely have to explain to them what a "Gamecube" is first.

[darkjak]

I think that Nintendo have made a bit of a clusterf**k with their portable consoles.

First there was the DS, then the DS Lite. OK, fair enough. Then came the DSi which had a camera and some new features, including a store with downloadable stuff, only available through the DSi. So it was some kind of half-way thing, like the PSP Go. And then the DSi XL. I can completely understand the confusion there.

And now Nintendo have brought out the 3DS. The machine has only minor visual differences from the old DS versions, which causes confusion. And very few casual gamers actually know it's a different console. Nintendo have been so bad at explaining that it's a different console, that when a festival was advertising (among other things) that people who were there could get hands on with the 3DS, the radio recording (which ran time and time again for a month prior to the festival) kept stating that people would get to "play the brand new Nintendo DS".

 

I see no flaw in this new slimline version. It's going to be cheaper and reach out to the casuals. I personally think it's too similar to the original Wii, which doesen't look as cool today as in 2005.

 

Also, what Nintendo did or didn't show at E3 doesen't matter. Some of the mainstream media might write about it, but the casuals don't read it or even look at it. What does matter is that the console is called Wii U. Which means that the some causals will think that the Wii U is for the Wii, what the DSi was for the DS.

 

And also, I don't think that Nintendo should go after the casuals as much this time. The Wii can be the new NES, with a 15 year lifespan, surviving both the Wii U and the Wii U's successor. Casuals don't care about HD. I know many young, hip girls whom are completely oblivious as to what HD is. The tech-geeks who really care about HD already own HD-consoles. The worst thing Nintendo can do is to shut down the production of the Wii before the launch of the Wii U, as they did with the Gamecube and N64.

Keep making Wii's, keep releasing games for it and keep letting third parties release games for it. Nintendo could even make it a policy to port most of their 3DS games for the Wii to keep it alive.

[LostOverThere]

Remember how Nintendo got grilled over E3 for not showing off enough of the Wii U's console itself? IMO, that was completely intentional, because I'm sure Nintendo knew, that wasn't going to be the final design.

[Zechs Merquise]

I think if this is the right price it'll be OK. I don't think there are any people out there who would want GC support who haven't got a Wii already.

 

Still, I think it's a bizarre move just before the WiiU. Unless however it's cheaper and is basically a cheap wii that'll be napped up before Christmas.

[killer kirby]

Wii U prob won't be out until end of next year anyway, seems rushed as it is and Nintendo don't want to fuck it up like they did the the 3DS launch, they MUST give Wii U the hype that the Wii garnered before release and GAMES!!!!

 

I think it's ok the new Wii reminds me more of the old PSone small version, just blended into the market to give it one last nudge before the system truly died.

[daftada]

This isn't a bizarre or unexpected move by Nintendo - they've done the same with every console and handheld they've ever made bar the n64, gb color and virtual boy. It's a very basic principle in business. Once a succesor is announced they always bring out a slightly revised, cheaper to make model so they can focus their main production lines on the newer format while still mopping up any one yet to pick one up (wii may have sold 70+ million but there are still twice that number of potential purchasers).

[nekunando]

I've actually been neglecting my Gamecube games a bit in the last year or two.. for some reason a lot of them seem to have lost a considerable amount of appeal

 

Games such as Wave Race: Blue Storm, F-Zero GX and Killer7, amongst others, are some of my favourite games ever and I'll always get them out now and again to remind myself of the joy I've had with them Unfortunately, the same can't be said for quite a few of the other games, including Timesplitters 2 and Super Mario Sunshine to a certain extent

 

Anyway, I decided to slip a couple of Gamecube games into my Wii today to see how I'd get on with them today, namely Hitman 2 and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3. The latter doesn't seem to work through component.. but then Hitman 2 just didn't work at all I tried a few more discs and it seems like my Wii is dying because none of my GC games would play on it

 

I guess I'm gonna at least have that in common with any new Wii owners with the new console bundle..

Edited August 20, 2011 by nekunando

[Pit-Jr]

This will come out... sell ok... the Wii U will come out... sell underwhelmingly... get a price cut... and be cheaper than this Wii redesign.

 

I like this idea!

 

But seriously i do hope the 3DS fiasco has convinced Nintendo not to rely on the Wii brand for automatic success. I want Wii U renamed and revamped into something new and fresh.

[Retro_Link]

New Wii gets New Colour Bundle

 

 

http://www.n-europe.com/news.php?nid=16406

[FireMeowth]

Oh. Right, the new Wii is apparently already in the stores, since last Friday.

Have anyone bought it yet? I'll probably get it sometime this week (if only the bad weather could stop for 30 minutes or so... *sighs*). :3