Wii Mini Actually Happening, But Only in Canada

Yesterday, the rumor about a Wii Mini hitting stores next month made the rounds, and today it’s been confirmed. The Wii Mini will be released on December 7th, but only in Canada. The unnamed source from yesterday turned out to be Best Buy Canada, and we found the hot little item on Nintendo‘s site as well. So get ready, Canada, for a smaller, less-featured version of a system you probably already own. Oh, also it’s red. So, there’s that.

We’re still not entirely certain there’s a need for this, but we were right in hypothesizing that the new system would come at a discount. The suggested retail price is $99.99. When you consider the fact that you can pick up a brand new full-sized Wii for only $119.99 at Best Buy right now, that seems less impressive, especially when taking into account what’s being sacrificed here. The Wii Mini will have no online capabilities and will not play GameCube games.

Getting rid of the ability to play GameCube discs is probably not going to upset a ton of folks, but ditching online capability doesn’t make sense. The online capabilities of the original Wii are laughable, but getting rid of them altogether is a huge step backwards. The only two things I use my Wii for these days are playing Dr. Mario Online Rx and watching Netflix. Sometimes I’ll pop in NHL 2K10, but even that has online features I’d miss.

What are you doing, Nintendo? Look at yourself in the mirror and get your life together.

(via Nintendo)

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