Nintendo is proud to announce that the Wii Mini console is heading for a March 22 release date in the United Kingdom. You probably shouldn't buy it.
Last year, Nintendo announced the redesigned Wii Mini and made it available as an exclusive in Canada. The system sported a bold red color, an even more slimmed-down console body, and proved that nobody likes Canada.
What?! How could you say that? It's sleek! It's sexy!
It doesn't connect to the Internet. Or play GameCube games. Or support component cables, much less HDMI cords.
The Wii Mini must have been a tempting gift for Canadian consumers, considering its holiday release date and budget-friendly price tag ($99 Canadian). Whatever that price range might mean to bargain hunters, though, the truth is that the Wii Mini doesn't really offer anything the original Wii is capable of except playing traditional, disc-based Wii games.
For whatever reason, Nintendo decided to simply cut off the Mini from the Internet. It revealed there would be no Wi-Fi capabilities during its initial announcement, but most people expected support for the company's internally-developed Ethernet USB adaptor. Not even that made the cut, meaning both online play and, more importantly, the entire classic games collection found on the Virtual Console would be unavailable to any child or gamer discovering a Wii Mini under the Christmas tree.
Backwards compatibility with GameCube games also was removed, so the only games playable on the system are whatever can be purchased on a disc in stores.
Granted, that could be fine for a lot of people. But to make matters worse, the Wii Mini is not even much smaller than the Wii.
"Unfortunately, the sad reality is that the Wii Mini disappoints on almost every level," wrote Digital Foundry at Eurogamer. "It's not a good-looking piece of kit at all, functionality has been stripped down to the absolute bare-bones, and perhaps worst of all for a product actively being marketed on its dinky form-factor is the fact that it's not actually that much smaller than the original model ... It's safe to say that we'd be quite happy if Nintendo never releases it elsewhere."
Dear UK: You have been warned.
