On Nintendo’s official Japanese site, the company has announced that production is scheduled to end soon.
Below are the only two Wii U consoles currently in production for Japan.
The text reads, 近日生産終了予定 (kinjitsu seisan shuuryou yotei), which means, “Production is scheduled to end soon.” After that, the announcement reads “within Japan” (日本国内 or Nihon kokunai).
The pictured Wii U console is the white 32GB “Premium Set” console, which is the only console listed on the Japanese website’s Wii U hardware page. The other Wii U consoles, including the black variation, are listed as “no longer in production”. In 2015, Nintendo killed off the 8GB Wii U in Japan.
In the past, Nintendo has often announced the discontinuation of hardware variations by similar notices on its official site.
Last week, Eurogamer reported that multiple sources confirmed to the site that the final Wii U would roll off the production line on November. At that time, Nintendo denied that report to a Japanese news site, stating, “There is no change to our continuing [Wii U] production.” The Nintendo spokesperson also added that the report that the Wii U was ending production “was not true”.
“Even though the Nintendo Switch is slated to go on sale, [Wii U] production is scheduled to continue,” the Nintendo spokesperson said at the time.
Scheduled to continue, that is, until sometime soon when it ends. Maybe Nintendo will launch another Wii U in Japan for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild? Or maybe that will be a Japanese Switch exclusive…
No word yet as to how this announcement impacts the Wii U in other regions. Kotaku has reached out to Nintendo for comment.
Comments
6 responses to “In Japan, Nintendo Announces Wii U Production Is Ending”
Well, at least they gave it a red hot go. Oh, wait, no they fucking didn’t.
The Wii-u was screwed from the beginning. Too many non-gamers dont realize its different from the Wii because of the name, so never got one. With low console sales, the third parties stopped making for it. With no games, hardly anyone bought the thing. Even now, I hear people asking if there is any difference between a Wii and Wii-u.
After owning a Wii and Wii-U, I’ve lost faith in Nintendo and won’t be bothering with the Switch. It looks cool and all, but so did the other two when they came out to me. I miss when game consoles were game consoles, and didn’t rely on weird/odd gimmicks for sales.
Would love for Nintendo to release a simple console that supports at least 4 controllers. Don’t think that’ll ever happen again.
And we never even got Battalion Wars 3 ;_;
Ooooh does that mean we might get the first official price drop for the console since launch.
So unprecedented* to not have officially dropped the price in the console’s lifespan.
After the fiasco of the mini nes classic having what felt like a purposely restricted run to make it seem more exciting and coveted and in turn opening up a market to scalpers, I am loosing my love in the company.
I love the wiiU but i feel like i am going to loose all my purchases for it once that screened controller dies. I love their games also but the frustration levels are just getting too big of late.
Sony and Microsoft don’t really have the same sort of game s though which is disappointing I just want fun happy games.
so lost in this market 🙁 , give me back 1992
*probably not unprecedented but it is monumentally strange.
Nah, the price will remain as is and in fact will end up rising due to the last remaining stock becoming highly sought-after. Nintendo avoids reducing prices like the plague.