A report from the Japanese financial newspaper The Nikkei revealed today that Nintendo will be halting production of the Wii U and some related accessories this year. The paper additionally states that Nintendo will reveal their new console (codenamed NX) sometime this year.
Before anyone jumps to speculate that this means for sure that the NX will be released this year, it’s important to note that this could just be Nintendo needing to shift through its remaining Wii U inventory. The end of production doesn’t mean that there aren’t any Wii U units available from here on out, it means that Nintendo has enough consoles stored up to last between now and whenever they’ve decided to phase it out.
That said, I’d really love to see the NX launch this year, and more than that, I’m hoping that it has at least some degree of backwards compatibility with the Wii U. It’s not where I do most of my gaming, but last year was fantastic for the console, with Splatoon, Super Mario Maker, and Xenoblade Chronicles X all showing the potential for the device. Once the NX launches, whatever it is, I’d really appreciate being able to return to those games (and a handful of others) without dragging my Wii U out of storage.
(Shout out to Jeff Grubb over at VentureBeat for bringing this to my attention!)
