Nintendo has announced, via their Official Nintendo Magazine (UK), that the Nintendo Wii will be receiving a redesign before the holidays, this year. The new model will be built specifically for use placed horizontally, as opposed to the original design's vertical-based positioning, and will come with the Wii Motion Plus, a Wii Remote and Nunchuck, Wii Sports, and Wii Party. However, the backwards compatibility feature found in all Wii systems sold thus far will no longer be supported, with the old models being discontinued. No plans have currently been announced to introduce the new model to North America or any other parts of the world as of yet.

Source(s): [Official Nintendo Magazine]

Who doesn't have a Wii already? And with lack of GC compatibility it better be under £100.

...Also how can you make a Wii smaller? Take a whole inch off it:

I'm already happy with the Wii I already have, and why take away backwards compatibility? I see this as simply a waste of money, thankfully, I don't live in Europe...

I don't like the loss of backwards compatibility, but I think that model looks a lot better than the original. It also bears a slight resemblance to the Wii U... but... why is it horizontal? Is the sensor bar built into the console or something?

The release of this seems bizarre. The Wii U is coming up, and releasing something with fewer functions than the Wii that has been out for so long seems pointless. I don't know how well this is going to sell.

I suppose I could understand dropping 'Cube support to make the system cheaper to give it one last sales push before the Wii U comes out. Dropping GC support isn't the worse thing in the world, because really the only people who still play GC games are acutal Nintendo fans who either already have a regular Wii by now or *gasp*STILL HAVE THEIR GAMECUBE! Though I could see how it is troublesome since many players (such as myself) like to play games like Brawl or Mario Kart with the GC controllers. Probably would have been better in the long-run though just to slash the price off the current Wii (they dropped 1/3 of the price off the 3DS, what's a few bucks off the Wii?) then spending all the resources to design an entirely new system that looks almost exactly the same (unlike the redesign the PS2 got where it shrunk to 1/3 of the size and get a more reliable top-loading DVD drive).

Sounds like they've been getting tips from Sony.

Okay.

I've bought each release of the new DS models.

Even when they're considered side-grades or useless.

And.

I can honestly say.

I wouldn't buy this.

I mean, granted the Wii has been in circulation for so long the backwards-compatible model is fairly common and it wouldn't be difficult to get your hands on one, and this is a safe sales push before the WiiU, but it's because of the WiiU's pending launch that this doesn't really make sense to purchase.

You guys would be insane (literally) to assume this is somehow related to Sony. Seriously, look at Nintendo backwards compatibility history:

NES - N/A
SNES - Nope.
N64 - Nope.
Gamecube - Nope.
Wii - Gamecube (Dropped)

GB - N/A
GBC - GB
GBA - GB+GBA
NDS - GBA (Dropped)
3DS - NDS


Comparing Sony's 3 Gens to Nintendo 5 is pretty hard, and, well, you see the point anyway.


---

That bit aside, as the one person who doesn't have a Wii, but does have a Gamecube, I could go for this...

Edit: Also, you're late. This was reported on Kotaku days ago.

Y'know, speaking of the GameCube, ever since I got the Wii, I literally have never turned it on except for the Game Boy Player (and during times on broadcast when I already had it hooked up for the aforementioned Game Boy Player).

Quote:

Originally Posted by FreezeWarp You guys would be insane (literally) to assume this is somehow related to Sony. Seriously, look at Nintendo backwards compatibility history: ... Comparing Sony's 3 Gens to Nintendo 5 is pretty hard, and, well, you see the point anyway.

Well, moreover Nintendo is doing what is has done with many of its previous gens (most notably the NES and SNES): releasing upgraded hardware when its about to hit the EOL. After all, the Wii U doesn't seem to be much more than a few seasons away - certainly less than a year.

...Seriously, if they can release this for $100 I am totally buying (I hope xD).

1. NES 101 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintend...Model_NES-101))

2. SNES 101 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_N...Model_SNS-101))

3. GBA Micro / GBASP

4. DSLite / DSi / DSiXL

I don't have a Wii and I am not bothered to buy one, but I daresay this one looks better than the older Wii.