General Gaming I know this question is redundant as we have the Switch, but why did Nintendo never release a budget Wii U?

[gamer.tv]

I'm only typing this as I've been playing our Wii U off and on recently (with being a student, I've had to make a lot of cut backs with purchases outside of food and bills, so gaming wise I'm restricted) and whilst I appreciate that the console does have an inbuilt requirement for the gamepad, there still enough experiences (or experiences that could have been patched in, following success) to make it worthwhile to have released a Wii U with a Pro controller. 

 

I'm never sure about UK pricing, but it would have been the sort of thing to get a £99.99 release with Mario, Donkey Kong or Smash or similar. 

 

Naturally, with perspective the reason for the lack of a release was due to the decision to abandon ship pretty quickly, focus on a true hybrid etc etc

 

 

It just seems odd, with Nintendo's track record of redesigning consoles, to not at least roll this one out.

[Rodimus]

I would say they just wanted to clear their inventory of Wii Us. That system sold so few it is like Dreamcast levels. Although I love the Dreamcast. Maybe someday I will love the Wii U. The Wii U has a few exclusives that haven't been ported to Switch that I hope changes further. Wii U has many Zelda games.

[AbsolutSurgen]

I'm not sure why they would.  The Wii-U controller was seen as being core to the experience.  I am sure they would just prefer to port the games to Switch and have them buy it there.

[crispy4000]

Switch was a chance to shed the dead weight and combine their handheld and console divisions.  They made the right call to not put any more effort into the Wii U than they did.

... I also don't think they did Wii U owners that dirty.  The late-gen stuff was a mixed bag, but the gap between Wii U and Switch was actually longer than the og Xbox to 360.

[TwinIon]

I think the Wii-U just sold so poorly that they needed to put all their effort into moving on as fast as possible. I'd argue that putting a console out lacking its primary feature would be stupid, but Nintendo has proven multiple times that they don't seem to mind doing so.

[chakoo]

1. System BOM was pricey

2. Sales were way too low and Nintendo had sizable amount of stock left

3. They saw the writing on the wall and felt the R&D investment would not have a good return. So all efforts went into switch.

 

probably the best deal on a WiiU was when retailers where dumping stock of the 8gb unit (bought mine for under $200 Cad new).

[Keyser_Soze]

They went reverse and released a more expensive Wii-U instead.