Despite having sold almost 100 million Wii consoles worldwide, it seems Nintendo aren't planning on moving their focus entirely onto their new Wii U quite yet. In an announcement yesterday, Nintendo confirmed they plan on releasing the smaller, stripped down 'Wii Mini' over here - a few months after it hit Canadian shores. Looking completely different to the old white Wii, the Wii Mini is red and black, with a top-loading pop-up disc drive (rather than the Wii's swish slot) and is slightly smaller than the original Wii console (which itself was pretty miniature, compared to the beasts that were the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.
With the new, slim design comes a new, slimmer price - although the savings haven't come without a cost. In order to bring the price down, Nintendo have stripped out quite a few features, with the Wii Mini unable to play your old GameCube games (much like the Wii U), but also having no internet connectivity whatsoever in a bid to make it more 'family friendly' - although, in our experience, and from what we've heard from families, the Wii's online capabilities are already so limited and protected, with only a handful of games supporting voice chat (and you have to buy a special peripheral to boot) and next to no options for strangers to send messages or random friend requests, any contact with unsavoury characters was already thankfully limited. What it does mean is that you won't be able to play games like Mario Kart Wii, Super Smash Bros. Brawl or Animal Crossing: Let's Go To The City with friends online - and perhaps more importantly, you also won't be able to download any of the awesome WiiWare games from the Wii Shop Channel, catch up on TV shows via the BBC iPlayer or stream films from Netflix. What you do get though is a snazzy red Wii Remote Plus and matching Nunchuck accessory - so we guess it's not all bad.
Alongside the budget-priced Wii Mini comes the addition of a few new titles to the 'Nintendo Selects' range - a collection of popular games at discounted prices. Joining the ranks of The Legend of Zelda: Twighlight Princess, Animal Crossing: Lets Go To The City and Super Mario Galaxy are four more favourite titles - the mini-game fuelled board game Mario Party 8, the power-up packed Mario Power Tennis and the popular pack-in Wii Sports Resort (with the immense 100 pin bowling mini-game). Meanwhile, bringing up the rear is the amazing Super Paper Mario, a puzzling platform adventure where you're rescuing Princess Peach from the clutches of someone who ISN'T Bowser.The Wii Mini hits stores across the UK on the 22nd of March, accompanied by the four new Nintendo Select titles. While no official price has been announced, the Wii Mini was released in Canada before Christmas, priced at around $100 - which works out at around £60 in proper money, although Amazon currently have it up for £79.99. So if you're one of the few people who hasn't nabbed a Wii yet, it's probably well worth a gamble, as the console has some of the best same-console multiplayer games this generation - just make sure you invest in the extra Wii Remotes!
