New slimline Wii set for holiday release

Gunmonkey

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-08-17-new-look-wii-out-for-christmas-article

Seems everyone is at this, maybe to try incentivise sales as they have started to slowed over the past few months. Also, reports say its lost the Gamecube ports and wont run GC games or hardware either.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-08-17-new-wii-loses-back-compatibility


Gotta find another console to play Donkey Konga on now

ScaldyMc

Was interested until I noted the lack of gamecube support. May get cheap old-wii.

CiDeRmAn

A real non news item, this Wii variant will appeal to the couple of dozen people on the planet who still want a Wii but haven't bought one yet.

This will cater to the WiiSport crowd exclusively while the rest of us move to the WiiU.

Fysh

I don't get the point of this - without adding anything to make it worth buying (eg DVD playback, even if it were through a pre-installed WiiWare package that was then made available to old Wii owners to let Ninty get around their ongoing fear of people using a console for non-console things) I don't see why they'd bother. Perhaps the new form factor is cheaper to manufacture?

Gunmonkey

Probably, since theres no GC ports or such needed. Plus they are discontinuing the old version. Pic in the link, looks the exact damn same:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-08-17-nintendo-discontinuing-current-wii-model

Dman001

I wouldn't really mind about lack of Gamecube support, but wish they kept the GC controller ports. When I had a Wii, I despised using the Wiimote for Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros. But, if I'm reading it right, I believe the Classic Controller can be used for the games? To be honest, I would have definitely considered to buy a Wii again, solely for the great First Party games from Nintendo and for the new Zelda.

Dozen Wicked Words

I could see the difference between PS1 downsize, smartening up near the end of its life, and I could see the big reduction in size in PS2 (although I preferred my fat original) .If the Wii was going from an old xbox size or something I could understand, but the Wii is only the size of a glorified CD Drive as it is so completely pointless. Pay the same to get less, oooh where do I sign up.

Is this a firmware fix thing they are attempting maybe? (genuinely can't think of any other reason for this) If so I think they have shut the door long after the horse has bolted.

tbahh

Also, the redesign looks similar to the Wii U console so it might confuse people when Wii U launches next year!

And Wii Sports is now a freebie again. It was a bit pointless to release it under the 'Nintendo Selects' range anyway.

Azure_sky

Pointless...

Mr.Saturn

Azure_sky wrote: »

Pointless...

It's not, it milks the budget market, like the SNES Jr, like the NES top-loader. The Wii, save for a couple of hurrahs, is essentially dead, it makes sense for corporate to cash-in on its corpse before all eyes turn toward the Wii-U.

Azure_sky

But it's not like the Wii needed to be slim lined. It's tiny to begin with. All it does is remove backwards compatibility for Game cube games. It offers less to the hard core gamer and every causal gamer already own(ed) a Wii already. I can't really see a market for it.

SK1979

Azure_sky wrote: »

But it's not like the Wii needed to be slim lined. It's tiny to begin with. All it does is remove backwards compatibility for Game cube games. It offers less to the hard core gamer and every causal gamer already own(ed) a Wii already. I can't really see a market for it.

It depends on the price though really to be fair. If they retail it for €100 then they should pick up a fair few sales. Hell, I'd imagine they'll sell some to people who've gotten rid of the Wii before and want to pick up something cheap to play stuff thats come out at Christmas (like Zelda etc).

Depends on the price though.

pdbhp

SK1979 wrote: »

It depends on the price though really to be fair. If they retail it for €100 then they should pick up a fair few sales. Hell, I'd imagine they'll sell some to people who've gotten rid of the Wii before and want to pick up something cheap to play stuff thats come out at Christmas (like Zelda etc).

Depends on the price though.

Well the MarioKart Wii bundle is €149.99 so they'd want to release the slim line Wii for about €69.99 or it'd tank

Mr E

No way will they sell it for less than €129.99, in my opinion....

Azure_sky

E130 with Mario bros Wii, Wii sports and Twilight Princess might make it plausible. They'd need to make good packages with quality Nintendo franchises. Throw in a few thousand wii points too.