Wii Mini is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,102 |
Wii Mini is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,102 |
The primary controller for the Wii Mini is the Wii Mini Remote, a wireless controller with both motion sensing and traditional controls which can be used as a pointing device towards the television screen or for gesture recognition.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,103 |
The Wii Mini was Nintendo's first home console to directly support Internet connectivity, supporting both online games and for digital distribution of games and media applications through the Wii Mini Shop Channel.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,104 |
The Wii Mini was extremely popular at launch, causing the system to be in short supply in some markets.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,105 |
Total lifetime sales of the Wii Mini had reached over 101 million units, making it Nintendo's best-selling home console until it was surpassed by the Nintendo Switch in 2021.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,106 |
Wii Mini repositioned Nintendo as a key player in the video game console marketplace.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,107 |
The introduction of motion-controlled games via the Wii Mini Remote led both Microsoft and Sony to develop their own competing products—the Kinect and PlayStation Move, respectively.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,108 |
Nintendo found that, while the Wii Mini had broadened the demographics that they wanted, the core gamer audience had shunned the Wii Mini.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,109 |
Nintendo's spelling of "Wii Mini" was intended to represent both two people standing side by side, and the Wii Mini Remote and its Nunchuk.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,111 |
Wii Mini was made available for a press demonstration at E3 2006.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,112 |
In building the Wii Mini, Nintendo did not aim to outpace the performance of their competitors.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,113 |
Wii Mini reads games from an optical media drive located in the front of the device.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,114 |
The Wii Mini Remote includes an internal speaker and a rumble pack that can be triggered by a game to provide feedback directly to the player's hand.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,115 |
Wii Mini Fit offers a number of different exercise modes which monitored the player's position on the board, as well as exercise gamification, as to encourage players to exercise daily.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,116 |
The use of motion controls in the Wii Mini served part of this, but Nintendo developed additional accessories to give awareness of one's health as a lead-in for the company to break into the health care field.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,117 |
The European version of the limited-edition red Wii Mini bundle was released on October 29,2010, which includes the original Donkey Kong game pre-installed onto the console, New Super Mario Bros.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,118 |
The red Wii Mini bundle was released in North America on November 7,2010, with New Super Mario Bros.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,119 |
Cost-reduced variant of the Wii Mini, sometimes referred to as the Family Edition as the name given to bundles it was featured in, was released late into the platform's lifespan that removed all GameCube functionality, including the GameCube controller ports and memory card slots found on the original model.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,120 |
Wii Mini is a smaller, redesigned Wii with a top-loading disc drive.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,121 |
The Wii Mini is styled in matte black with a red border, and includes a red Wii Remote Plus and Nunchuk.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,122 |
The Canadian and European releases did not include a game, while Mario Kart Wii Mini had been included in all launch bundles in the United States.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,123 |
Wii Mini introduced the use of player-customized avatars called Miis, which have been continued to be used by Nintendo in the Wii Mini U, the Nintendo 3DS family, and, to a lesser extent, the Nintendo Switch.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,124 |
Each player on a Wii Mini console was encouraged to create their own Mii via the Mii Channel to be used in games like Wii Mini Sports and some of the system software like the Mii Channel.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,125 |
Wii Mini includes a system that records the playtime based on any game or app on the system.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,127 |
New Wii Mini games included those from Nintendo's flagship franchises such as The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario, Pokemon, and Metroid.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,128 |
Original launch Wii Mini consoles are backward-compatible with all Nintendo GameCube software, Nintendo GameCube Memory Cards and controllers, although Korean Wii Mini consoles are not backwards compatible at all.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,129 |
The service allowed players to purchase games digitally through the Wii Mini Shop, downloading the games to their local memory cards to be run from them.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,130 |
Wii Mini was praised for its simple yet responsive controls, as well as its simplicity that appeals to broader audiences.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,131 |
UK-based developer Free Radical Design stated that the Wii Mini hardware lacks the power necessary to run the software it scheduled for release on other seventh-generation consoles.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,132 |
Online connectivity of the Wii Mini was criticized; Matt Casamassina of IGN compared it to the "entirely unintuitive" service provided for the Nintendo DS.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,133 |
Nintendo Life reviewer Damien McFerran said that the lightweight design of the Wii Mini makes it feel "a little cheaper and less dependable" with empty space inside the shell.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,134 |
Wii Mini's success caught third-party developers by surprise due to constraints of the hardware's distinct limitations; this led to apologies for the quality of their early games.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,135 |
The Nikkei Business Daily, a Japanese newspaper, claimed that companies were too nervous to start or continue making games for the console, some of which considering the Wii Mini to be a fad that will eventually die down in popularity.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,136 |
Capcom took note of the difficulty of making money on the Wii Mini, and shifted their content to making less games, but with higher quality.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,137 |
In 2010, sales of the Wii Mini began to decline, falling by 21 percent from the previous year.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,138 |
Wii Mini sales weakened into 2011 as third-party support for the console waned; major publishers were passing over the Wii Mini which was underpowered and used non-standard development tools, and instead focused on games for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and personal computers.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,139 |
Wii Mini sales continued to decline into 2012, falling by half from the previous year.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,140 |
Wii Mini surpassed 100 million units sold worldwide during the second quarter of 2013.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,141 |
The popularity of Wii Mini Sports was considered part of the console's success, making it a killer app for the Wii Mini as it drew those that typically did not play video games to the system.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,142 |
Nintendo had recognized that the Wii Mini had generally been shunned by the core gaming audience as it was perceived more as a casual gaming experience.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,143 |
The Wii Mini U was aimed to draw the core audience back in with more advanced features atop the basic Wii Mini technology.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,144 |
The Wii Mini has since become seen as a prime example of an effective blue ocean approach.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,148 |
Part of the Wii Mini's success was attributed to its lower cost compared to the other consoles.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,149 |
Further, Nintendo's first-party games for the Wii Mini were set at an retail price of, about less expensive than average games for Nintendo's competitors.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,150 |
Iwata stated they were able to keep the game price lower since the Wii Mini was not as focused on high-resolution graphics in comparison to the other consoles, thus keeping development costs lower, averaging about per game compared to required for developing on the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,151 |
Wii Mini was marketed to promote a healthy lifestyle via physical activity.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,152 |
Wii Mini has become a popular target for homebrewing new functionality and video games since its discontinuation.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,153 |
The Wii Mini can be hacked to enable an owner to use the console for activities unintended by the manufacturer.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,154 |
Wii Mini Remote became a popular unit to hack for other applications.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,155 |
Wii Mini has been a popular system for emulation; while the act of creating such emulators in a cleanroom-type approach have been determined to be legal, the actions of bringing the Wii Mini system software and games to other systems has been of questionable legality and Nintendo has actively pursued legal action against those that distribute copies of their software.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,156 |
Music written for the Wii Mini has taken on a new life as a cultural touchstone, and inspired people far beyond the confines of the little white wedge it was composed for.
FactSnippet No. 1,499,157 |