After months of speculation, Nintendo has finally announced they are closing down the production of Wii U.
First spotted by Kotaku the company made the announcement in their officially Japanese site. “On Nintendo’s official Japanese site, the company has announced that production is scheduled to end soon,” the publication said. There are two Wii U consoles currently in production for Japan. As you can see in the picture below, 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).
As per EuroGamer, the final Wii U devices are rolling out this week. At the last official count, as of 30th September, Nintendo had shipped 13.36m Wii U consoles. The Wii U’s final tally will likely now be only slightly more, writes the publication. Nintendo’s Japanese production line has ended after the final deadline for order passed yesterday. The publication says that “only a small number of further orders were placed,” which is the primary reason behind the end of Wii U.
Wii U, the home video game console was the first eight generation video game console and competes with the likes of PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Upon release, the console was meet with general positive reviews but was met with slow consumer adoption. The low sales were due to the weak lineup of launch titles, third-party support and other marketing reasons.
The End of Wii U comes in the wake of the launch of Nintendo Switch. The Switch is one of the most anticipated consoles that’ll launch on March 12 in the US and may cost $299. Hinting at a price, Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima said: “Regarding the price, as we have been saying, we are, in principle, not planning to sell it at a loss. We would like a wide variety of consumers to enjoy Nintendo products, and we would also like to think regarding consumersʼ expectations for our products.”
GameSeek reports that Nintendo is taking final orders for Wii U until October 31st.
