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Modders made a tiny Nintendo Wii that doubles as a keychain
Modders made a functional Nintendo Wii that’s the size of a keychain. It doesn’t accept discs, for obvious reasons, but does work with standard controllers.
Lawrence Bonk07.24.2024
Dolphin is releasing its GameCube and Wii emulator on Steam
The project hopes to launch on Steam before the end of June.
Sean Buckley03.28.2023
You can buy a gold-plated Wii originally made for the Queen
A 24 karat gold Wii intended for Queen Elizabeth II is now up for auction, if you have deep pockets.
Jon Fingas05.06.2022
The Nintendo Wii and DSi stores have been down for days with no explanation
Nintendo's DSi and Wii stores have both shut down for days with no explanation from the company.
Steve Dent03.21.2022
'Nintendo Switch Sports' brings back Wii-style bowling, tennis and more on April 29th
'Wii Sports' lives again in Nintendo's latest sports title.
Kris Naudus02.09.2022
NES and SNES designer retires from Nintendo after nearly 40 years
The designer of the NES and SNES, Lance Barr, is retiring from Nintendo after nearly 40 years at the company.
Jon Fingas08.26.2021
Nintendo brings the first two No More Heroes games to the Switch
Nintendo is making up for the delay of No More Heroes 3 with the surprise rerelease of No More Heroes and No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle for Switch.
Igor Bonifacic10.28.2020
Someone squeezed a Nintendo Wii into a Game Boy Color-like case
GingerOfMods used parts from various Nintendo consoles to make the Wiiboy Color work.
Kris Holt08.28.2020
‘Shakedown Hawaii’ is coming to Wii and Wii U
The 16-bit retro action game Shakedown Hawaii will soon be available on the Wii U and, for those who still own one, the Wii. Developer Brian Provinciano announced the news on the Vblank Entertainment blog that the Wii version will launch Thursday, July 9th in the UK, with the Wii U version to follow sometime in August. Provinciano seems to admit as much, as he wrote that the idea to port to the Wii came from a “whim of curiosity” and a “jolt of Wii nostalgia.”
Ann Smajstrla06.26.2020
Nintendo will stop repairing Wii consoles in March
Nintendo's Wii has had a phenomenal run since its 2006 launch, selling more than 101 million consoles across its seven-year lifespan. Now, years after it was supplanted by the Wii U and then the Switch, Nintendo is announcing that it'll no longer service damaged Wiis in Japan and will stop accepting new units on March 31st.
Daniel Cooper01.27.2020
Court overturns patent ruling that would've cost Nintendo $10 million
After almost seven years, Nintendo has won a patent case that involved the original Wii. On Tuesday, the company announced that a federal court in Dallas ruled in its favor against iLife Technologies, overturning an earlier 2017 decision that would have forced Nintendo to pay out $10.1 million in damages.
Igor Bonifacic01.21.2020
The 10-year challenge: Video game edition
The 10-year challenge swept social media in January, with people posting images of themselves from 2009 and 2019, usually accompanied by a cute remark about things being the same yet totally different. It's a fun, heartwarming way to train machine learning algorithms in facial recognition.
Jessica Conditt12.30.2019
Nintendo's Wii Shop Channel shuts down today
It's a sad day for loyal fans of the original Wii. As promised back in 2017, Nintendo is closing down the Wii Shop Channel as of January 30th. It lost much of its usefulness after March 26th of last year, when you could no longer add Wii Points and thus buy games, but you're now losing options to buy games with existing points, re-download digital titles or transfer content from a Wii to the Wii U. It's not quite like downgrading your system to the offline-only Wii mini, but it's close.
Jon Fingas01.30.2019
Netflix for Wii will stop working after January 31st, 2019
Do you have an old Wii hooked up in the bedroom solely to watch Netflix? You might want to look for an alternative in the near future. Netflix has emailed customers and posted a notice warning that Nintendo will "suspend" Netflix and other streaming video services on the Wii after January 31st, 2019. The shutdown will come alongside the closure of the Wii Shop channel and suggests that the 2006-era console won't be useful for much more than playing offline games (but only the ones you already have copies of) as of next year.
Jon Fingas11.11.2018
Prototype Nintendo Wii remote turns up at auction
Nintendo's hidden device history isn't just limited to an unreleased PlayStation. Yahoo Japan user Kuriaisu1122 recently sold a prototype Wii remote that bears only superficial similarity to the one that shipped in 2006. The button layout is the same, but this two-piece controller had a wired GameCube connection and even required plugging the sensor bar into a GameCube memory card slot. The main remote and nunchuck control joined together through Ethernet rather than the finished proprietary link, and the primary controls (including the D-pad and main buttons) came from the Game Boy Advance SP.
Jon Fingas10.29.2018
'Let's Sing 2019' is the latest game destined for the Wii
Just Dance isn't the only modern game franchise headed to a 12-year-old console. Amid the Gamescom shuffle, THQ Nordic announced that it would be releasing its Europe-focused music title Let's Sing 2019 for the PS4, Switch... and the Wii. This isn't completely shocking when the publisher also made the 2018 game available for Wii, but the system is rapidly running out of time -- the Wii Shop Channel is shutting down in 2019. If this isn't the last Wii version in the franchise, it's pretty close.
Jon Fingas09.04.2018
'Just Dance 2019' is heading to the Wii like it's 2009
Ubisoft's E3 press conference kicked off with a marching band, crazy costumes and a dancing panda and yet somehow that wasn't even the most bizarre thing about the company's announcement of Just Dance 2019. While the latest installment of the motion-capture dancing series will be released on all the usual suspects -- PS4, Xbox One and Switch -- Ubisoft's also giving fans of older systems something new to play on the Xbox 360, Wii U and yes, even the Wii.
Kris Naudus06.11.2018
Nintendo's Switch is the fastest-selling US console ever
The Switch has broken the US record for the fastest selling console ever, with 4.8 million units sold in just 10 months, Nintendo says. That shatters the previous record of 4 million US sales in the same time, also held by Nintendo with the Wii. Switch sales first opened on March 3rd, 2017, and it looks like strong holiday sales pushed the Switch over the top.
Steve Dent01.04.2018
Tonight's 'Zelda' DLC gives you a motorcycle
The next add-on pack for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild takes the champions from the base game (Gerudo, Goron, Rito and Zora) adds a slew of new challenges. And best of all, it's available incredibly soon. More than just additional shrines, the pack brings in new costumes for the Hero of Time and his trusty steed, and it pulls the King of Hyrule and Princess Zelda into the mix too. "The Champions Ballad" will be released tonight on Switch and Wii U and should give you some extra bits to play through as you're scouring Hyrule. Oh, right, and as Link you'll get to tool around the overworld on a motorcycle. There isn't a lot more you could ask for, really.
Timothy J. Seppala12.07.2017
Nintendo Wii, GameCube games come to China on NVIDIA Shield
As revealed by industry analyst Daniel Ahmad, Nintendo is teaming up with NVIDIA to release some of its Wii and Gamecube games in China for the first time. While NVIDIA's Tegra chip is at the heart of the Nintendo Switch, in this case, the games will run on the NVIDIA Shield, which hit the market today in China. NVIDIA confirmed that New Super Mario Bros. Wii, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and PUNCH-OUT!! are all available now for the Shield in 1080p, while others including Super Mario Galaxy are "coming soon." Ahmad posted videos of Nintendo games running on the Shield (sourced from Weibo) and provided some pricing info, saying that the Shield in China costs 1499 RMB (about $226), while each remastered game costs 68 RMB (about $10). We wouldn't expect anything about this arrangement to expand beyond China in the foreseeable future, but the licensing arrangement is a way for Nintendo to crack the market officially. We don't have much information on the Shield that's available in China, but it is different from the US version, with local "content, store, search and more" plus a voice control AI powered by Baidu.
Richard Lawler12.05.2017