Wii mini, or: Unnecessary console redesigns 101

What games? There is one game for sale in Nintendo's store that isn't an NES original... and that's World of Goo. Nintendo's online offerings for Wii are so pathetic that I constantly question why it exists.

Not going to lie, Sin & Punishment outside of freaky eBay prices was reason enough for me.

No, the cutscenes don't make any more sense in context.

clarifying: no, one nifty import doesn't make for a good selection, and as a service the Wii's shop was kind of a failure. But it makes it worth going for if you're buying the console anyway.

I hope that's an agreement with me and not a post defending the Wii Store for carrying what looks like a completely awful game.

What exactly are you arguing here, that Nintendo can't compete on price with their own used products... that's sort of a given in any market and completely pointless comparison. The mini doesn't exist to compete against used Wiis, it's a cheaper NEW option for the consumer.

I'm arguing that Nintendo hasn't done enough to make that new option attractive when the used products are ubiquitous.

The used products have a greater featureset at a lower pricepoint. Not comparable - greater. This is not going to help them in convincing people to buy a new Wii mini, if they're looking to obtain a Wii on a budget.

If you're willing to pay a premium for a new product, the original model Wii is better.

If you're looking to obtain a Wii as cheaply as possible, the original model Wii is better.

I am not convinced that there is a substantial market which is looking to obtain a Wii as cheaply as possible, but which requires that it be new, and which is willing to sacrifice features for that.

Wait, there are two?!

That isn't true, I have several of them. I'll have to wait til I get home and can look at my Wii to get their names, though.

Even if it were true, it appears to require very little marginal effort to put another Virtual Console game on the market compared to a the costs of developing a full-on WiiWare game. So lots and lots of NES games aren't a bad thing for Nintendo.

I think you'd be surprised at the number of people who simply don't consider used when making purchasing decisions or consider the risk of getting burned too high to bother with it (this is me by the way). Also, many consumers who aren't particularly savvy in the market they're shopping in will simply go to the store see a Wii for $150 and Wii mini for $100 and may pick the mini if they want to save a few dollars. YOU may not be convinced these people exist but I assure you that they do. Do they exist in numbers great enough to justify the product, who knows? Nintendo is obviously testing the waters with this so they're not even sure there's a market for the product. I don't think any of us as armchair marketers have the answer either, finding that out is sort of the whole point of this endeavor.

As I indicated I don't generally consider buying used products of damn near anything. The headache of finding it, meeting up with the seller and risk of the product being junk are just things I don't want to deal with so unless I'm saving a considerable amount of money I'll take the ease and peace of mind and buy new.

The only thing my Wii gets used for these days is playing Netflix for the kids. You know, that thing that requires Internet, which Nintendo somehow decided was unnecessary and removed.

Yeah, I thought about that, but Nintendo isn't really making any money off of those customers anyway. Though they are more likely to buy a product than someone who doesn't own the console.

Here are a few sample WiiWare, non-VC downloadable games for sale in the eShop that are also not World of Goo:

• NyxQuest
• Contra ReBirth
• Art Style: Orbient
• BIT.TRIP BEAT
• Cave Story
• LostWinds
  
  
  There are many others. Am I misunderstanding your post? Nintendo's online situation is dire, but not as bad as I think you're suggesting.

I bet I could name 6 awesome games for every single year of the 360 or PS3's lifespan. Probably many more than that.

Okay? Good? I didn't say anything about the quality of those games, or the merits of the platform's downloadable libraries vs. the 360 or the PS3. I have all three consoles and I consider the Wii generally a failure in both retail and downloadable games. If you read what I quoted, I was just showing an assertion to be false.

I would be all over one of these for my nearly-five-year-old.

Good lord this thread is dumb. How long before people start claiming that used Wiis are better and only cost five bucks and that the only game in the eShop is Custer's Revenge HD? What the hell, people? It's a like the Nintendo-hating equivalent of NeoGAF in here.

I don't know about anyone else, but I have nothing against the Wii; the Wii is a fine platform with a fairly decent selection of titles.

I'm just incredibly skeptical that this new SKU is going to find a place in the marketplace.

Also: how much can they reasonably expect to shave off of production costs with this model? Since they need to get the lines up and running for it - that's going to take a sizable chunk off of the savings.

I wouldn't be surprised if this model isn't also intended for wider sale in South America and other parts of SE Asia.

Yeah, and I could see that working; I mentioned it in the OP.

But, if that's the plan... why test-market it in Canada? Not exactly applicable.

I think this console could sell a lot. It is half the price of the cheapest Xbox or the 3DS, and quite a bit less than a DS. There's plenty of good games available for it. To me this looks great for younger children, and for parents who won't spend hundreds on a games console. If our Wii breaks down, who knows; maybe I'd pick one up if the price was ok. After having done two warranty replacements of Wii's due to faulty graphics, I am wary of used units, and I probably won't buy a Wii U. The only big negative for me would be lack of WaveBird support for SmashBros, but that is probably survivable.

Nintendo has a long history of releasing dumb versions of outdated systems, Gameboy Micro anyone?

Do they even have electricity in Canada?

Yes, far more than we need and a significant percentage of it goes south of the border to keep several Yankee cities from having to endure rolling blackouts. You're welcome you ingrate.

We also have humorless lesbians.

And our electricity is generated through majestic moose turbines.

I'm not buying a mini Wii, though.

Lum should rename this forum Sanctum Nintendum.

(accidental humor: haw haw Nintendo+dumb = Nintendum!!!11!)

But are there gamers who have not bought a Wii yet who ever would buy a Wii? Are there gamers who have bought a Wii and want a second one and wouldn't just get a full-featured one second-hand for less than this?

I mean, he's right that these people exist, but I don't see the correlation between their existence and sales of this new product.

Wii actually had all kinds of awesome shit. In addition to the shovelware, mind you; certainly tons of shovelware.

But, yeah. Considering how much advertisement Little King's Story, Sin & Punishment: Star Successor or Xenoblade got - the primary target audience is obvious enough.

You are forgetting the market again. None of those are kids games. here is a hint, kinds under 10 don't care about the nostalgia element of virtual console either.

Charles has it completely right - A tiny title kid friendly clamshell you buy for your under 7-10 year old kid, put in their bedroom / play area and forget about. No worries about inappropriate on-line behaviour, no using the credit card to buy weird crap etc.

How many of those can you sell? dunno! But I bet you can sell some - this is about scooping out the bits of peanut butter left in the bottom and corners of the wii sales jar, not about the next blockbuster console launch that requires best buy midnight launches.

Yes YOU CAN monitor your child's online behaviour (I do), but having no on-line component sort of simplifies that.

Motherfucker how many times do I have to repeat that that list is a reply to Pogo's assertion and nothing else?

It's amazing how angry you guys managed to make a Nintendo-thread even though Dave Long didn't join the exodus.

Pogo asserted that the Nintendo online offering was so bad he "wondered why it existed". This was in response to an earlier assertion BY YOU that "nintendo missed a sales opportunity" by not including the on-line offering in the Wii mini

Your "rejoinder" was that there was totally at least SIX games that didn't have the Nintendo logo on them in the shop. I didn't find your rejoinder compelling in backing up your earlier assertion that "Nintendo missed a sales opportunity" by not including their (by your own words) "dire" online offering.

I give up. You are illiterate.

Component output isn't present.

They already have the software. It's a part of the same AV-out pinout as the composite cables. The same AV-out port the Wii already used.

How much are they actually even saving by not including a few pins in that port? Maybe they took this as a chance to make the DAC even shittier? I don't even know.