Selling 100 million is a good stopping point, right?
The Wii may have secured a solid lead ahead of the Xbox 360 and PS3 with a tidy 100 million units under its belt, but let’s face facts: its time in the sun is over. With the 3DS dominating in Japan and the US and the Wii U needing to be given space to breathe and grow, Nintendo has made the decision to end the Wii’s production run.
Over on the top right corner of the Japanese Wii homepage is a block of text that reads “Kinjutsu seisan shuuryou yotei,” which loosely translates to “Production scheduled to end soon.” Now is the time to stockpile on all the discounted Wii games that you may have missed. And of course, you can also make use of the Wii U’s backwards compatibility (now with off-TV play for Wii Mode).
It breaks my heart to see the kind of casual disregard the Wii was given, written off like it had nothing of value or was only supported by “casuals” who bought a single game and that was it. But I got a new Sin & Punishment and Punch-Out!! I became a fan of Suda51 through No More Heroes. I found sparkling diamonds in games like Muramasa and the Trauma series. And there are still gems from all three regions that I need to try out: Fragile Dreams, Captain Rainbow, Day of Disaster, Klonoa, Zangeki no Reginleiv, Taiko no Tatsujin, and more.
I think the console deserves to be remembered fondly. If you gave up on the Wii at any point, I urge you to use this opportunity to give it one last chance and look back on all you missed.