Nintendo of Japan has officially announced that in-house repair services for the Wii U will be ending soon. This comes shortly after its eShop shut down a few months back, alongside that of the 3DS.
Now over a decade old, the Wii U would be Nintendo's worst-selling console if the Virtual Boy didn't exist, plagued by poor marketing, a weak launch day lineup, underpowered hardware, and a gimmicky controller that made it hard for third-parties to develop games for it. It sold a grand total of 13.5 million in lifetime sales and would be effortlessly outsold by its successor, the Nintendo Switch, within a year after leaving the market. Since then, most of its best games have been ported to the Switch, and the Wii U itself is mostly remembered as Nintendo's necessary misstep and dark era, although it is not without its dedicated defenders.
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As reported by IGN, Nintendo of Japan has reported a shortage of repair parts for the Wii U console, Gamepad, and other peripherals, following the Wii U's shuttered production six years ago, and has decided to end all official repair services once those parts run out completely. Likewise, an official end date was not provided, as that hinges on how many players might need their Wii Us fixed in the meantime. Currently, this announcement only applies to Japan, as Nintendo of America has yet to heed a request for comment, but it can only be a matter of time before similar announcements pop up from other regions.
Nintendo of Japan went on to apologize to fans for the announcement, and in the event that they're experiencing hardware problems, advised them to send their Wii U's in for repairs as soon as possible before the necessary parts run out. The Wii U being out of print and the lack of new units available makes a simple replacement more difficult, and combining that with the recent phenomenon of Wii Us bricking if underused, keeping these consoles in order is a necessity more than ever.
It can always be hard to hear that something one loves is no longer being supported by its developers, but usually alternate means of maintaining older items pop up. With some fans already promising to keep the Wii U and 3DS eShops open unofficially, it can only be a matter of time before an unofficial way to refurbish one's Wii U pops up, like it has for most retro consoles.
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Source: IGN