Wii Mini Launch Met With Lack Of Interest In Great Britain

The Wii Mini launched in the United Kingdom yesterday to less than impressive fanfare. The stripped down version of the Wii has had decent success in Canada and the move to the UK was being largely billed as a way for Nintendo to tell whether it should be launched elsewhere.

One of the country’s biggest retail video game stores, GAME said that consumers had actually shown no interest in getting the console that has basically been made as bare bones as Nintedo could go. One representative from the company said that some stores weren’t even stocking the console because there had been so little interest.

Another British retailer, HMV said they also hadn’t seen much in the way of actual interest in the console. Like GAME, the store chain said that it really wasn’t even stocking this version of the Wii right now, but might reconsider if interest picked up.

The Wii Mini’s lack of interest could be getting fueled by the imminent launch of the Playstation 4 or the Xbox 720. It could also be a more systemic problem as Nintendo is seeing serious sales issued with the Wii U as well.

It seems likely that this new paired down version of the Wii was a way for Nintendo to try and get every last ounce of money out of the console. The problem is that the Wii has always been an extremely specialized gaming system and it might just be that the specialization is being usurped by mobile devices.

The iPad and Android tablets are putting out more and more children’s games and those are easier to get access to these days. This particular console does not have Wifi connectability nor does it have backwards compatibility. Those are two reasons why the console seems less than popular.

Would you be interested in the Wii Mini?