The Nintendo Wii was first released in America on November 19th, continental Europe on November 30th, in Japan and the United Kingdom on December 2nd and 8th of the same year respectively. The Wii then went to sell 101 million units in its shelf life, becoming the company’s best selling platform of all time. The console was taken off shelves in 2013. Now, Nintendo posted an update on the customer support page for the Japan market. They will no longer be servicing any repairs to the console on March 31st of this year. Nintendo cited that spare parts were becoming too scarce to keep repairing the ageing system. Nintendo will stop accepting repair requests for peripherals for the Wii when spare parts run empty. Nintendo’s European and North American customer support is yet to make any comments on stopping system repairs.
The customer support update refers to the RVL-001 model of the Wii. So far the RVL-101 model which launched in 2011 and the Wii mini RVL-201 model which launched in 2017 is still receiving repairs from Nintendo. Though it may be soon that repairs start closing down as well, most likely due to scarcity of parts as well. The technology for the Wii and the later generations of the Wii family is now considered old and very few manufacturers make the parts needed as newer machines having taken over popularity since the Wii’s deshelving.
The Wii gained popularity for its pioneering of motion controls as well as having the backing of Nintendo’s catalogue of properties. Later, the Wii was replaced by the WiiU in 2012 and then even more recently the Nintendo Switch in 2017. The Wii sits at the fourth best selling console of all time falling behind Sony’s PlayStation, PlayStation 2, and PlayStation 4. Ubisoft’s Just Dance 2020 is the last game that will release for the Wii bringing the console to a full close after the 13 year-long life cycle.