It looks like the deal is sealed, Nintendo just announced the demise of Wii U production. After countless back and forth rumors and denials, and for the last time, posted on a Japanese site yesterday. The Wii U's end is indeed imminent. Well, obviously it is, but at least this time we now have official word from the big Nintendo themselves. Which leads me to ask, again, is now the time to invest on getting a mint console for future collector value?
After the first update, or shall we say scoop, the legit statement coming from Nintendo themselves was posted on a Japanese site's listing of the Wii U. The information was posted in Kanji that would translate to: "production is scheduled to end soon," and followed by words in parenthesis: "within Japan." These confirm that it definitely will end production soon in Japan.
Speculation about yesterday's Japanese website info leak being a hiccup is now being voided by the report posted by WWG's post that an official statement from Nintendo of America confirms that the Wii U will stop production in the US as well. The official statement implied that they have already have done production by stating that all Wii U targeted for North American market have already been shipped. The giveaway about halting production is their statement on encouraging consumers to contact their providers to monitor availability - if the Wii U is currently in demand that it would mean one thing, but it isn't so the implications for it to be discontinued is very high. Here are the exact words:
"We can confirm that as of today, all Wii U hardware that will be made available in the North American market for this fiscal year has already been shipped to our retail partners. We encourage anyone who wants Wii U to communicate with their preferred retail outlet to monitor availability."
Nintendo also gave word about the Japenese website info incident, and they have confirmed its Wii U production end in Japan but no exact date yet is decided.
"As recently posted by Nintendo on the Wii U website in Japan, Wii U production will end in the near future for the Japanese domestic market. We have nothing to announce in terms of exact timing."
How about investing on it today?
I would like to get a mint Wii U for investment as retro gaming have now been a fad lately. This would mean also that the Wii U console will hopefully be a hot item 10 years from now. Trying to weigh to pros and cons, I decided to just wait it out until the price drops all-time low. Why? Because even though the console had contributions to modern gaming, its impact compared to what the NES did is low. Also, the fact that it's among Nintendo's slowest sellers would also affect its value once we all get old, and the next generation would start to dig the retros of their time.
It has been a tough ride for Nintendo the moment they missed the opportunity with Sony's PlayStation where they could have acquired the rights to. Their consoles have been 'bullied' around by Sony and Microsoft but next year would be another round of challenges as they put up the Nintendo Switch to challenge the big boys. Good luck, Nintendo. Good night, Wii U.
