Yes. I said it while it was going on and while it was released. I've been banned numerous times on this site simply because of upset Nintendo fans reporting me for saying as much.

The reason for large sales was mostly due to 'new members' to the market and it's price-point. Like a new workout style or a hot toy around Christmas, the Wii was mostly a fad and even the pattern of it's sales would suggest as much.

It had the least power and functions of all of it's competition, you could make a very strong debate that it had a worse game library overall between the three consoles (Take a look at Metacritic or other comparison sites.) It had terrible third party support even while being a market leader (indicative of the general feelings on the system). The so called "revolutionary" controls are mostly irrelevant now and much of the industry doesn't even care to utilize them in any legitimately tangible way.

Many of it's "big selling" games weren't core games at all but more of fad-esque shallow-casual games. It released the latest of all three consoles at the cheapest price and released it's successor console 'first'. It's sales were completely lop-sided and not consistent.


Absolutely was a fad and the late release of the Wii combined with the early release of the Wii U and the incredibly disappointing sales thus far for the Wii U only confirm that.

I think some are pissed that it did not turn out they way they thought it would, so they lash out. The Wii didnt get the 50% market share they thought it would, it didnt get the support they thought it would, from either 3rd parties or even Ninty toward the end. Their are also some who hate Sony/MS and thought this woudl have been the opportunity for them to go away, that didnt happen and it pisses some of them off, if anything those two still managed to do ok and still they continue to get support. YOu made good point and i would just ignore them.

Clearly wii was a fad lol.

3.5yrs of breakthrough success and media love, then everything fell apart. Nintendo lost 30%+ of their net worth, developers fled, hype stopped, death.

If you really thought wii was anything other than a fad.. Well, you probably don't know wtf your talking about lol. I predicted this would happen when the wii launched, took a few years but I was right.

I do love me some Nintendo, but im going with fad.

I agree Wii is suck a fad, I mean like the casuals have moved on already.

Oh wait Just Dance is still selling better that all the other hardcore 3rd party games combined on Wii.

Just Dance 4, the game that brought developers back to the wii, the game that ensured nintendo's dominance for the remainder of this generation... Oh wait, none of that happened. It's a rehash of motion controlled shovelware used to milk anything left from dead wii console...

Nice cherry pick lol. Way to make a point.

I didn't say PSP, I said PS2. Can you deny it was a fad?

Shht, don't tell all the people that are angry about the success of the Wii, they can assure themself by calling Wii a fad.

yes it was a fad. But why is being a fad a bad thing?

The Wii was a typical Nintendo console that was driven to incredible success by several 'fads' - those being Wii Sports, Wii Fit, Guitar Hero (where is sold strongest although Wii just caught it's apex (GHIII) and decline) and Just Dance.

If it was possible to remove those sales from Wii (and PS3/360 from their share of these fads) we would fine Wii's sales would be more typical of Nintendo home console sales.

No one can argue that Zelda:TP, Smash Bros, Mario Kart, SMG, NSMB, MHTri did not sell any consoles and all Wii sales were due to Wii Sports. That argument is clearly without any basis. Even if the Wii series did not exist, Mario Kart with Wii controls and NSMB would have sold to a broader audience than any GC game and elevated Wii sales over GC. Wii was also less 'kiddie' than GC and much more attractive to have in front of your TV than a big bulky, noisy early 360 or PS3 - making it a preferred choice to many light gamers who would have bought a system even without the Wii Sports/Fit craze.

I'd guess Wii sales without the four 'fads' at about 40m-50m. Not as much as PS3/360 have done in their overlong time on the market but a successful console for Nintendo and by any standard and certainly not quantifiable as a 'fad'.