Gamers who trade in their Wii consoles before the Wii U’s launch will lose their Virtual Console games and Miis.
Wii? What Wii? That’s so 2006. With the announcement of the Wii U’s release date and price yesterday, some retailers have begun taking pre-orders for Nintendo’s next console, with GameStop offering a $50 trade-in for your Wii. And since the Wii U is backwards compatible, who needs a Wii, right? Not so fast: if you want to transfer your Wii content to the Wii U, you’ll need to have both systems at the same time.
This isn’t exactly shocking news, but it is inconvenient for those hoping to get some trade-in bonuses to help cover the Wii U’s price. According to a Nintendo rep, “Wii U owners can wirelessly transfer content such as Miis, and WiiWare and Virtual Console games to their Wii U systems. Both systems will need to be connected to the Internet and the Wii U will need an SD card to facilitate the transfer.” The process will be similar to transferring content from a Nintendo DS to 3DS, or 3DS to 3DS XL, which also require both systems to be present.
If you’ve got an impressive library of Virtual Console and WiiWare games and you’re planning to upgrade to the Wii U, here’s your warning to hold on to your Wii until launch day. It would be great if Nintendo could offer an alternative to this, like tying your games and Miis to an account or allowing them to be stored externally until the Wii U arrives, but at least the system-to-system transfer will be pretty simple once the new console comes out… assuming you haven’t already ditched your Wii.
Source: Gimme Gimme Games via Destructoid
