News - Wii Mini is leaked by online retailer Best Buy

[HEXUS]

It’s scheduled for release in North America on 7th December 2012.

Read more.

[BiblicalShower]

Well that's going to annoy some not-so-tech-savvy parents this Christmas when they go into shops asking for "That new Wii"

[Nabobalis]

I don't see the point in this. Unless they have a massive amount of Wii Hardware to ship.

Also the link didn't work for me. But http://www.nintendo.com/wiimini/ did.

Edit:

Wii Mini is designed exclusively to play Wii games. Its family-friendly design has no Internet capabilities and does not play Nintendo GameCube games.

Wii Mini is available exclusively in Canada during the holiday season. No information is available about its potential availability in other territories in the future. Remember that Wii Mini features parental controls that let adults manage the content their children can access. For more information about this and other features, visit nintendo.com/wiimini.

Why is it exclusive to Canada? Also a lack of any internet ability. This just seems such a strange move.

[scaryjim]

It's a cheap, entry-level Wii-disc only console to make money out of people who won't spend on the latest console and don't care about online play or other fancy stuff - they just want to do a spot of Wii bowling or some such. Think of it as a way to persuade people who usually go round a mate's to play on their Wii, to get one of their own. It's priced for impulse purchase territory, it's dropped all the legacy support to cut the size and BOM (I wouldn't be surprised if this is actually selling at a hardware profit!), and it means that any back-inventory they did have of Wii components can be put to good use boosting the sales of Wii hardware. Based on the bundled accessories there's no HDMI, which strongly suggests that they're taking a normal Wii, ripping out anything extraneous, then selling what's left.

Whether it's genuinely a way to clear out excess inventory in overlap with the Wii U, or its a deliberate marketing plan to run two different consoles side-by-side in two different market spaces, I'm not sure - but I like it

If it lands in the UK at some point in the future, priced sufficiently below £100, I'd be very tempted to buy one.

[Nabobalis]

If it lands in the UK at some point in the future, priced sufficiently below £100, I'd be very tempted to buy one.

I would bet it would land here for £100

[M3ltd0Vvn]

Does it play DVDs? I guess for someone that just had an old DVD spinner die (and they still refuse to upgrade to a Blu-Ray) AND they also want game playing ability (maybe for the RV or at Grandmas house?) AND they already have a huge collection of Wii titles... this would be a good buy at $99....

Thats a lot of what-if scenarios to make this $99 worht it. I'm betting Nintendo has an arse ton of wii parts laying around and this is their one shot at trying to make some money off of those parts.

[scaryjim]

Given the original Wii didn't play DVDs out of the box, I seriously doubt this will. It may be hackable,though...

EDIT: also, no mention of DVDs on the site Nabobalis linked - I'm sure they'd've made a point of mentioning it if it could play them...

[baius]

Does having Mini in the name of one of their products make some major technology companies feel more complete?

Hmmm.

Lack of Internet? Just WiFi or CAT too? If the latter it, seems like a bit of a killer to me. Aren't there Wii Interface updates? Wouldn't these be unavailable to this console without Internet?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Lack of Internet? Just WiFi or CAT too?