Article written by Peter Chapman.
Published on 23/03/2013 at 01:10 PM.
The Wii Mini has launched in the UK. What, you didn’t go to a midnight opening and queue for four hours to buy yours? It seems you weren’t alone.
Techradar has posted a story in which it claims to have spoken to Game and HMV about the launch of Nintendo’s pared back, discount version of their incredibly successful Wii hardware. Both retailers apparently say that there has been barely any interest whatsoever in the new hardware revision. According to the tech website, the Game flagship store that it spoke to (which is unnamed) won’t even be stocking the console.
The Wii Mini is marginally smaller than the Wii everyone knows and loves, with a snazzy red and black colour scheme and a lack of many of the features that users might want from their console. It has no WiFi, for example. There’s no support for the ethernet adapter either so anything that a Wii does online, including Virtual Console purchases and downlaodable games, is off limits. Priced at around £80 in the UK, it’s also significantly more expensive than its full-featured older sibling if you’re willing to shop around a little bit.
There are a number of games that it’s worth owning a Wii for – at least the two Mario Galaxy games and a raft of JRPGs, for example – so if you’ve never enjoyed Wii ownership and would like to, we can totally understand that. My suggestion is that you nip off and buy a nice cheap one on eBay. Perhaps even consider a second hand one, they’re much more reliable than the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 were in their early days so you should be safe enough.
Don’t see the point of the mini when you can get the original cheaper. If you have youngsters that you don’t want them to get online don’t plug in the ethernet cable.
The Wii has Wi-fi. Get your point though.
I actually think the Wii Mini is a great idea, but priced stupidly.
Just don’t set up the wi-fi. Young kids are more computer literate these days but if your wi-fi is password protected, as it should be, they cannot connect.
Your right about the price, far too expensive.
If the Wii Mini had been priced at £40 then it’d make sense but not at £80
For ‘marginally smaller’, a few less features and what looks like tacky plastic in the shape of a maccie-d’s burger box, £80 is a lot. Mini-ing the Wii seems like an odd move when Nintendo already have a new console out, they’ve probably worked out that they can make a profit on the wee bugger but surely a bit more investment in the Wii-U marketing machine would have been more appropriate?
WOW, consumers have finally woken up from theri braindead decade and finally worked out, the Wii was basically a PS2 but without the game library…
yeah, I bloody loved those PS2 Mario platformers.
;)
The Mario games sucked badly compared to the really good PS2 platformers.
Perhaps consumers are sick and tired of a console that’s 7 years behind the times, and only had yet another samey Mario title to save it.
Lets face it, outside the Nintendo 1st party titles, all the Nintendo hardware has been a shovelware magnet.
That’s an incredibly narrowed view of what the Wii has had to offer.
i’m surprised you made no mention of the fact that it only offers composite output.
that along with the lack of Gamecube support would put me off ever buying one of these.
i actually quite like the look of the machine itself, but the cut down feature set would put me off owning one.
maybe if i found one ultra cheap at some point in the future i might consider it as a spare for the bedroom, but not as my main Wii.
The main reason to just maybe ever consider owning a wii is the virtual console for the classics.
Not seen a single advert for it.
Hadn’t even heard of it until I clicked on this post. Do people really need a Wii Mini? It’s not like the original was an intrusive size or even expensive, what a horrible time to do something like this considering how long we are into the Wii’s shelf life.