Rethinking this... its actually not a bad idea or setup.

No Online:
The best Wii system pushing / selling Wii games were local only. With the minor exception of MarioKartWii and even here I'd wager that most only played locally or were sold on it for local play.

The rare non-Wii owner:
"$99 Wii for those great party games I played at friends houses, sweet! After all had I cared about VC or Gamecube compatibility, I'd bought a Wii already."

The Wii owner:
"Shit, I now own a WiiU/PS360 and I dont' care about the other content. I can now put one in my kids room for cheap and let them play the Wii content I still have (games only). While my other VC/WW is now no my WiiU or simply never bought any."

I'd fit in the last category. I just sold my Wii today and I wanted the $80 it sold (wiisports/play/2controllers) for more than the console. However, I had considered keeping it around, but I was wary as I didn't want someone to buy content on it accidently and have it lost to my WiiU as you can only move content once. I also knew that since it was a original Wii it had some value now still.

Basically, its a rock bottom Wii experience for the 90% use case of the Wii; local play with party games/fun multiplayer games. I now think this is actually a great idea considering the potential future userbase and the only parts they'd likely care about... i.e. the existing game library, which is extensive.

Maybe this is really a test. Besides VC/WW and maybe a few games, Wii wasn`t popular for it`s online so there might be some thought behind this. Yes there will be people that won`t buy it because they can`t download games or play online, but the majority might just want to play games alone or with friends and family and that`s it.

Let`s see how Mini will do sales wise.