Goodbye Wii (1 Viewer)

After a long bout of declining sales, Nintendo Co.’s former flagship console, will soon cease to be produced in Japan, followed by a global phaseout.

The Wii is survived by the Wii U, Wii minis sold abroad, and the Nintendo 3DS handheld.

It seems like yesterday when I got my Wii, though I can't remember the last time I turned it on.

Who owns a Wii? A Wii U?

I have a wii which I got as a gift a few years ago. I played it a dozen or so times and was moderately entertained but never really got into it. Eventually the wii was demoted to streaming Netflix on my wife's tv.Not too long ago I had the urge to play some classic Nintendo games so I tried to hook up the wii on my tv and couldn't for lack of an analog connection.

I hadn't touched my Wii in years, but recently the laser in my PS3 died and we fired up the Wii while the PS3 was in the shop. The games were primitive in comparison, but still fun. My son and I had such a blast with Little League Baseball that I bought a copy of MLB Power Pros!

Of course, then the PS3 came home. . .

Nintendo can be proud, the Wii was an amazing success and will always be lauded as such. The Wii made Joe Sixpack get his ass off the couch and got granny to hold a controller for the very first time. It got kids, young and old, into console gaming like never before. A Wii will continue to occupy a spot in my theater, even if its just occasionally for a seamless game of golf or bowling. It will likely, eventually, be gifted to an older relative who is new to gaming and cares not for the blood and violence that graces the bleeding edge consoles of today. The Wii will be remembered for exactly what it was-an overwhelmingly inventive success in a very tough industry.

It brought the wand controller into the game, which brought us PS3 Move and X-Box Kinect.
But once the playing field was equal, the industry was down to which console could replace your home theater and cable/streaming box. (With PS3 offering 3D Blu-ray and X-Box One throwing hints about cable-readiness.) And at that point, Nintendo needed to get their heads out of the Game.

The image was constantly on young parents, kids, and adults, doing exercise games, which made it the mainstream Console For Your Parents.
Sort of like when the color handhelds took off in the early 90's, the old green Gameboy suddenly started pitching its ads to execs and thirtysomethings to play on the bus commutes. When a Nintendo retires, it goes to the Old Folks' Home.

Own a wii and wiiu. The WiiU gets guff, but Pikmin3 and The Incredible 101 have been blasts. The Wii had the game I respect the most in Super Paper Mario Wii. Just genius.

I have a WIi and Wii U. I love my WIi U. Game selection is low but the top titles are truly amazing.

The Wii has quite the legacy behind it. It faded near the end of its life but all major platforms that become THAT successful will end up being full of shovelware. Have you looked at XBL Arcade? The PS1/PS2 were also completely covered in crap titles, except they didn't have the occasional Super Mario Galaxy. The big reason people like the PS3/360 more this gen was because of multiplatform titles, not the exclusives. Sony and MS have their own AAA titles, but nothing holds a candle to Nintendo.

Unfortunately, ALL Nintendo really seems to have is that handful of AAA titles...

Sidenote: the 3DS has surpassed lifetime Wii sales in Japan. And to think people called it dead on arrival when it first released. Never count Nintendo out.

Wow, that is amazing about the 3DS. I have to assume that that is not close to happening in the US, though.

I have one somewhere. I bought it, attempted to hook it up but could never get the controllers to sync to the system. I stuck it in a drawer intending to hook it up again but I've never fooled with it since. I don't play that much in the way of video games anymore but when I do, my SNES and Atari 2600 fill the need. I'd love to add an NES as I accidentally received a joystick for it (it was supposed to be a 2600) and still have a handful of NES games.

I still have my Wii and play it intermittently and there were some really good games on it, but on the whole, the moving around arms flailing gimmick nature of the console meant I didn't play it as much as my PS3 or PC. I have not bothered to move over to a Wii U. Spent that money on a PS4.

I found the Wii to be engaging and fun with a shallow learning curve, and still use it. All things must come to an end, but the Wii occupied a niche for dedicated family games that were fun and easy to play for years.