The official website of Nintendo in Japan confirms that the production of Wii U will be ceased “soon”, as translated by Kotaku. Specifically, the list of platforms indicated “production is scheduled to end soon.”
This news had been advanced last week by several medias, in order to focus on its successor, Nintendo Switch, that is going to be released in March 2017.
However, Nintendo denied the rumors and a spokesman for the company told IT Media that “there is no change to our continuing [Wii U] production,” and that the final manufacturing “was not true”.
“Even though the Nintendo Switch is slated to go on sale, [Wii U] production is scheduled to continue,” he said.
The rumors about the cessation are not new. In March, the Nikkei newspaper reported on the same line, explaining that Nintendo had to focus its efforts on NX – the key name now as Switch. Nintendo also denied the news at that time, although President Tatsumi Kimishima said a month later that he would significantly reduce the amount of produced and distributed systems.
As already pointed by Kotaku, Nintendo has denied on other occasions information that later is fulfilled, if Nikkei revealing that Nintendo 3DS would be a review of a greater size; months later launching Nintendo 3DS XL.
On September 30, according to the latest data of the Japanese company, Nintendo has distributed 13.36 million units of Wii U. In comparison, the figures for Wii U pales with 21 million GameCube, the 32 million machines achieved by Nintendo 64 or the impressive 101 million obtained by the Wii phenomenon.
