Nintendo ceases Wii U production this week

Another Nintendo generation officially ends this week, as the Wii U is no more.

A moment of silence please

It’s always sad when a generation ends in an official capacity. That’s pretty much what we’re looking at here with a production stop on the Wii U. It’s a very ‘final’ way of seeing things out. Not that this current gen is over by any means, with both Sony and Microsoft still going strong. But things sure are over for Nintendo, who’s about to release its next system with the Switch.

Pointing to more than one source, website Eurogamer is reporting that no more Wii U’s will be produced after this coming Friday. There apparently was a deadline of sorts in play, which ends then. New orders on the console for this Holiday season could only be placed till Friday, so once that passes, that’s it.

For the record, the Wii U seems to have been Nintendo’s least popular console ever. The system didn’t even make it through the typically expected five year cycle. Don’t forget that it was released at the end of 2012 and is being phased out now in 2016. Since the Switch releases in 2017, I guess you could make the argument that it’s been five years, but not in the strictest sense.

A slow start, with no legs

Eurogamer points out a few facts too, to show the slog that the Wii U generation has been. The console sold decently at first, but has ended with a total number of sales that’ll be just about thirteen and a half million units. Contrast that against the likes of even the GameCube at 21 million, and you can see a pretty clear story emerge.

To me, that all comes down to games, or lack thereof. There were first-party games definitely, that you expect. But once again, the third-party support was non-existent. Not that that came as a shock since the Wii U was so underpowered it simply couldn’t run the biggest games. And even if you don’t particularly care for stuff like Call of Duty and Madden, you kind of need those games. Well, you do if you want to have a successful console anyway.

Speaking of, we’ll be finding out more about successor, the Nintendo Switch, come January. But although the console is looking pretty cool, I think Nintendo fans have cause for concern. Remember that once again, it’s rumored that the system won’t have the full-on punch that the competition does. In this case, I’m talking about a launch PS4 or Xbox One. And if that’s true, then we could be looking at what’s become the same old Nintendo story.

Source: Eurogamer