Nintendo Wii U Rumored to End Its Production Line

The Wii U, one of the recent video game consoles made by Nintendo, is rumored to cease production. Eurogamer has a multiple sourced reported that the Nintendo’s Japan based production will stop making Wii U this week.

Based on the company’s forecast, it also suggests that Nintendo could ship at least 240,000 more console units until 31st March 2017. If the rumors are confirmed to be true, this could mark Nintendo’s very first transition from Wii U to Switch, its recently announced game console.

The Wii U was the first system to step into the 8th generation of video game consoles. It launched back in November 2012 with major improvements, from its last gen Wii, with new controller designs and more powerful hardware specs. However, the Wii U is considered to be one of the least successful consoles in the Nintendo family, with only 13 million units shipping — while the GameCube sold 21 million units, the N64 sold 32 million units, and Wii sold 101 million units.

Major factors that contributed to Wii U’s failure include low support from third-party game publishers, and weak hardware specs when comparing to its 8th gen counterparts, the Xbox One and PS4.

(Update: Nintendo has officially stated via Japanese outlet IT Media that there’s no change to Wii U production and rumors about its production ending was indeed not true)

Does this mean that the Switch has already killed off the Wii U? Will The Switch kill off more Nintendo consoles like the 3DS? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.