It’s been more than 13 years, but Nintendo has finally announced that the company is ending official repair support for the Nintendo Wii. The sheer number of Wii consoles out there, with lifetime console sales in excess of 100 million units, makes this a pretty big deal. Nintendo Wii repair support will end on March 31st, 2020, according to the notice posted on the Nintendo website.
The notice also revealed that any Wii repair orders submitted may be subject to stock issues, and be terminated early. The core reasoning for this termination is that Nintendo is running low on spare parts for the nearly 15 year-old console. The peripherals supply is also running low, with Nintendo expected to halt replacement and repairs of things like Wiimotes soon as well.
The last game to be released on Wii is Just Dance 2020. Yes, the Wii was still getting games ported to the motion-controlled console in 2019. Of course franchises like Just Dance have been getting releases on pretty much every major console to try and force success through sheer volume. So it’s not that surprising.
The Nintendo Wii was released in December 2006. The console had stiff competition from the PS2 and original Xbox, both of which were more powerful graphically. The major selling point of the Wii was the gimmick surrounding innovative but simple motion controls. This push combined with a massive library of casual-oriented games landed millions of units in the hands of people who had not played video games in years. The trend also exploded in the the disastrous Kinect and Sony motion control efforts as a brand of trend-chasing nonsense. Nintendo has sold over 101 million units of their Wii console since its launch in 2006
