Heck, Sega's Master System is still somewhat popular in parts of Latin America, so why not try to sell them something more up to date like the Wii?
Wii support will continue
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Nintendo of America president says 2006 console remains viable; will look to push system in Canada, Latin America, and Eastern Europe markets.
The Wii U may be the current focus of attention for Nintendo, but that does not mean the company is abandoning the Wii. In an investor question and answer session attended by Engadget, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime confirmed the Mario maker will continue to support the Wii, and will look to regions outside of the United States to push the aging console.
"We will continue to sell the Wii," Fils-Aime said. "In the US, the Wii has sold about 40 million units. We believe that there continues to be an opportunity with the Wii."
The Nintendo executive further commented that he believes there is an opportunity to push the Wii in Canada, as well as Latin America and Eastern Europe because of the system's lower price point relative to the Wii U. Nintendo's new console will be available come November in two models: a $300 basic version and a $350 deluxe iteration.
"You can reach price points, you can reach consumers that, candidly, we won't be able to reach with the Wii U. That's gonna continue to be an opportunity," he said. "On a global base, certainly there are markets in Eastern Europe. There are a number of other markets where if Wii has an attractive price point, it'll do well."
Fils-Aime said Nintendo will sell the Wii side-by-side with the Wii U "for some period of time," but did not say when this support will expire or if a price drop is planned. The Wii currently retails for $150 in the United States.
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
143 comments
1 Like Clever of Nintendo to sell the Wii in Eastern Europe and Latin America. I don't think many households in those regions have 50 inch HD tvs and not many have internet connection. Wii can't do HD or online but it doesn't matter for them.
I hope you're trolling.
Even brazilian slums (I live in Brazil) have HD TVs nowadays.
We don't live in the jungle.
Wii development is all but dead as off this christmas you'll probably see another Mario Winter Sports game or something like that and maybe some devs will release a Wii version of the U game but only a tiny amount because Ninty wouldnt want anyone to not buy there new console
Wii 3rd party support is all but dead at this point. And the only first party game that i know of from now till X-mas is some Kirby Nes roms a disc.
We get this article every time a system is about to be replaced. It is rarely true.
Wii games have been few and far between for what feels like years. I'm still happy with mine overall, but I haven't played much on it since 2009 or so. Not at all like how I kept finding new games to play on the Genesis, DS, GBA and even GameCube (which had terrible late-life support but I kept finding old titles to play at least, and kept it in my regular system rotation unlike Wii).
well considering the wii u plays wii games anyway everything is in place for them to continue support.
2 Like I thought they were talking about backwards compat but, since it's not, yet another reason to not buy Wii U! I could agree if Sony president said "We still sell PS2 and give it support" but it's hard to believe when that comes from Nintendo... so, If I'm not crazy, will they launch U and keep Wii running? Will they develop for both..?
Dude, stop misinforming people.
The Wii U features backward compatibility with the Wii games and perifferals. It's an already well known fact.
I completely understand your Sony fanboyism: you've dumped boatloads of money into the PS3's library -only to discover that its games and controllers probably WON'T work with the PS4. But that's no reason to give Nintendo a hard time nor spread bs rumors.
2 Like
Please read up on the Wii U before misinforming these people. It is backward compatible with Wii games. Just like the Wii was with gamecube games.
I can see Nintendo supporting the online features and Wiiware titels for a very long time, but with even like Sony and MIcrosoft they will eventually stop developing actual disc based games for the hardware. Probably when the Wii U has a large install base.
@joshphillips The Wii wasn't exactly backwards compatible with the Gamecube... more a case of, too all intents and purposes being a Gamecube.
1 Like THe userbase is dying at a very fast rate. You can check your local senoir citizens nursing home
I agree! But its really a handful among unbelievable amount of shovelware. I am not missing out anything. I have a few WII games. Dont play them on the WII though. I played / will play them on Dolphin. There is not much reason to buy the WII itself. Not for me. The few Wii games yes but not the console
@edinko Real gamers play all consoles. This fanboy attitude is bullshit. There are some excellent games on the Wii, just not as many as the other systems. If you just disregard the Wii altogether, you are missing on some great titles.
Smart move on the periphery, but it would be counter productive in the major markets. Nintendo may be forced into a 'two tier" business model.
Yeah, there might still be a ton of games coming out in Japan. In the US, after the WiiU comes out, all you're gonna get is Madden and Call of Duty.
Having Wii and WiiU at the same time is a bad idea. They should have just changed the name
This comment has been deleted
and wii 1.5 wtf , are you nuts unlike the ps3 360 it is fully hd , it does not rely on upscalling from 720 p , lol and 30 fps lol its 60 fps full 1080p hd , free online , so ya i like to see how much xbox720 costs before you run your mouth , if they dont include a hard drive for 300 bucks its a bust if they so much as charge 600 again (a 360 w the wifi adapter and game costed nearly 600 plus xbox live) if they pull that again sorry wii u wins
@mariokart64fan well yeah they can sell it for that much the components are a couple years out of date... i just built a PC which has probably three times the power of any current systems and probably double the wiiUs capabilities Sure it was 1400 bucks but the wiiU is still starting out outdated
excuse me i play my wii , need for speed goldeneye marioparty 9 hotwheels driver paralel lines , re0 reuc house of the dead plus all the gc games i still play and vc games and no hilmupsman you haters are the joke!
2 Like Why is it the Wii 1.5? Cause it has bacwards compatibility? Or is it that it has 1080P? Face it, you are just another hater without real cause.
4 Like Honestly, who still plays the Wii now unless your playing some classic RPG's or the Legend of Zelda series because your GameCube broke.
@dnguyen3 I only play my Wii when I have casual gamer friends over... It still does that way better than my Xbox and PS3 but I gotta admit I never play it by myself anymore...
This seems like a good idea. They did the same thing from the Gameboy advance to DS. Yes it raises the price of games a little but at least you can still have two markets to attract people.
1 Like I am actually surprised at this since Nintendo has, for the past couple of generations anyways, ended hardware support fairly quickly after a new generation has been released.
2 Like No matter what you think of the Wii, it's Nintendo's best selling console (if you don't count hand held consoles). It trumps the Xbox 360 with almost 30 million units, although it doesn't seem to sell as much nowadays. I'm a PC-only gamer, but I think it's good that they're not abandoning the Wii, just because they have a new product to sell. I doubt they'll go to PS2-lengths of support after Wii U is released, but it's still a good thing.
@Hurvl The console sold incredibly well, but the games didn't. Which is why every third party developer jumped ship to the 360/PS3, and given Nintendo's own half-assed approach towards their own games (well, mostly NoA here), this statement comes off as hilariously pie-in-the-sky at best and a complete bald-faced lie at worst.
@Hurvl Well Sony did that to get more money out of you. lol. Joking aside its nice to see nintendo do something different for once.
2 Like Jesus do people just like to hate these days for the sake of it? Nintendo has been around for years doing a good job, some of my best memories are on Nintendo consoles as a youngster playing games with friends and thats the main point Nintendo is about wii the people playing games together not just online with haters around the world that we don't know. But I guess this is where haters are spawning from, The fact that people don't communicate to each other in the real world as much anymore. Thats my guess....
@ollie2000000 Or maybe because a lot of the hype for the original Wii was based on a lot of "what-ifs" that never materialized (or turned out to be impossible anyway) and Nintendo made a lot of promises to gamers and developers with the Wii and didn't deliver on them (example: poor software attrition rate, Operation Rainfall/Day of Crisis NA no-shows) and both jumped to Microsoft and Sony's systems, treating the Wii as a supplement at best. Those just may be the reasons why people are casting a critical eye on this new system, and not some vague "people don't talk in the real world anymore" claptrap (and seriously, you're going to posit that theory on a gaming site?).
@doctor_fury Ha, behave yourself the end of your comment makes little and no sense since i have these conversations with the things we call... um... friends but how would you know that so please don't be juvenile
@ollie2000000 I'm not sure how questioning a silly and irrelevant comment is "juvenile", but whatever.
"You can reach price points, you can reach consumers that, candidly, we won't be able to reach with the Wii U. That's gonna continue to be an opportunity,"
... See, I don't get that. How the hell can you afford $50 a game if you can't afford $150 extra for a console? That just doesn't make any sense to me.
2 Like Are there any more worthwhile games even coming out for it because if not, it definitely has one foot planted firmly in the grave already.
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