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Nintendo is Already Phasing Out the Wii U

Posted by Matt Birchler
β€” 1 min read

Nintendo announced they are ending their Nintendo TVii service on August 11.

After almost 3 years of finding, watching and engaging with Nintendo TVii, we will be ending the service on August 11, 2015 at 3:00pm PT. At the same time, we will be closing the Nintendo TVii Miiverse community.

This is another step towards Nintendo's phasing out of the Wii U. We got our first taste of the end of the Wii U when Nintendo publicly announced the existence of the NX. Anyone who knows a thing or two about marketing knows that a good way to murder sales of your current widget is to announce your next widget.

We saw it again at E3 this year when basically nothing new was announced for the Wii U. In fact, even the new Wii U Zelda game, which was slated to come out this fall, was a complete no-show. Many suspect this means that it's being pushed and turned into an NX launch game.

Even the much anticipated new Metroid game was said to be too late for the Wii U and will be made for the NX.

All signs point to Nintendo trying to rush the Wii U out the door to make room for their new home console. It would appear that Nintendo has finally come to terms with the fact that the Wii U is a failure and is serious about moving on to the next phase. I expect more explicit teases from Nintendo before the end of the year, and we may see some hardware/software really early in 2016.