Hidden away in a press release announcing that the Mario and Sonic 2012 Olympics game will be available in a bundle with a blue Wii – available November 18th, bundle fans – Nintendo has revealed that it will be starting to remove GameCube backwards compatibility from the console.
The “reconfigured” Wii (Nintendo’s words, not ours), which has only been announced as part of this bundle so far, will no longer support either GameCube software or accessories. The boxart for the bundle also shows the console in a horizontal position, compared to it’s vertical stance on all other boxes, with the on-console labels all rotated accordingly – given the lack of a stand on the art, it looks like that is being removed from the new bundle as well.
These changes, combined with the fact no price has yet been announced for the bundle, seems to suggest that Nintendo are planning a budget-friendly price cut for the Wii just ahead of Christmas.
On a related note, am I the only one that thinks it’s weird for the Olympic game to be released eight months before the actual Olympic Games even starts?
Source: press release
Stef Nighthawk
Further enhancing the confusion between Wii and Wii U :-/
Newgeneration
….And then suddenly, GC emulation reaches its peak. It’s a shame they’re taking backwards compatibility out. Glad I got an earlier Wii.