Who is still using their original Wii?

Hi everyone,

So, while I was doing some cleaning in our basement the other day, I found our old original Nintendo Wii. Actually, we have 2 of them, the original white one that we bought in the summer of 2007 and then the red anniversary edition that we bought in late 2009/early 2010. We haven't used them in years. We do have the Wii U, which we bought back in 2012 when it first came out, but neither my husband or I ever really liked the Wii U, mainly because of the lack games available for it and it just always felt kind of gimmicky with that giant game pad, so it's mainly been collecting dust for the past several years and, for the most part, we've just been using our Xbox One and PS4.

Anyway, I was thinking about hooking up our old Wii and playing some Mario Galaxy for old times/nostalgia sake. However, first I will need to go on eBay or Amazon and order some component cables since all I was able to find was the power cord and can't find the other cables that go with it anywhere. Is it even worth investing any money in the original Wii and ordering the cables and possibly even picking up some original Wii games? We still have all of our old Wii games (about 30 of them, including all of the Mario titles). Do the online play and the shop channel to download virtual console games on the original Wii even still work? I guess I'm just wondering if people even still use the old Wii since it's been considered "obsolete" for going on 5 years now. Our red 25th anniversary edition Wii console is in absolutely mint condition since it was hardly ever used, so I hate to see it collecting dust!

Yes, I am fully aware that we can play our old Wii games on our Wii U, but, like I said, I never really liked the U and I'd just prefer to use the original Wii, which I have so many fond memories of.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! :)

I personally do not. I have a GameCube and a WiiU. Playing Wii Games on the WiiU isn't any different than playing them on the Wii so I guess the lack of games, giant game pad that isn't used to play Wii games, and being gimmecky doesn't bother me when I'm playing Mario Galaxy.

I was actually thinking of keeping mine since it played GameCube games but I just reinvested into GC and am much happier with that decision. Right now, I'm just trying to get through my backlog of Wii/WiiU games so I can just move on to Switch and leave those 2 gens behind for good.

I use mine for playing GameCube games. I have a cube too, but the component cable for them costs a fortune and they are 10 a penny for the Wii.

Yeah, I still play it.

Most online games were shut down years ago, but I've heard Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was still running as of last June.

You can still go online to buy games from the Wii shop Chanel, but I have a feeling that will shut down soon with Switch coming out.

Thanks for all the input! I guess I'm just nostalgic about the original Wii and miss those days terribly. The Wii U was a huge disappointment to me, so I hardly ever used it, with the exception of when Mario Kart 8 came out a few years ago, but even that didn't feel the same. I have both Mario Galaxy and Mario Galaxy 2 and I never beat either one of those (although I did get about halfway through the first Mario Galaxy back in 2007/2008), so I would really love to go back and complete both of those games before the NX comes out. It's been a good 9 years since I've played Mario Galaxy! I played it all the time up until we bought our house in the spring of 2008 and then, for some unknown reason, just never picked it back up. I also would like to beat Donkey Kong Country Returns, which I also have and never beaten. I do have DK Tropical Freeze for the Wii U, but that game requires a significant amount of time and patience, which I don't really have! I gave up on that for good after the first few levels. I did manage to get some AV cables for the old Wii on eBay for about $3, so I'll try hooking it up once those arrive sometime next week.

I sure hope that the NX will have a MUCH better run than the Wii U did!

GoldenEye 007 for the Wii still has its online running too.

I fire mine two or three times a week for maybe an hour, lots of fun games, besides, I play GBA, NES and SNES games in it.

mw3, black ops, mw reflex, & golden eye online all still work. i still play mw3 all the time. i prefer the pointing thing for aiming. is nice. mw3 works well most of the time if you have a passable connection, black ops almost as good as that, reflex is a little unplayable though has plenty of players anyhow, & golden eye runs mostly ok but the lag manifests in the look controls. it takes alot of patience. the cheaters and cheap players are a problem of course.

there are still alot of games i want for the wii. my wanting those games are almost in the way of me caring much about new games.

my drive broke down a bit ago. they sent me the wrong drive, and the wrong tools that i needed. i was stuck with the wrong drive, cant play cube games, but they sent me like five screwdrivers to compensate for sending me the wrong one in the first place. ordering online has never worked out for me, save once. i used sprite points to get a dreamcast tomb raider that i never really played. i hope i always have that wii working. i have super mario 64 on it, my brother stole my true copy. i keep meaning to set up my cube again, but keep putting it off.

I kept my wii and all the games also. I just couldn't part with mario galaxy and metroid trilogy. From what I heard a couple months ago the online store is still up. I've been thinking about buying some virtual games. I'm not 100% sure because I haven't checked for myself.

Not all component cables are equal. Some are better then others. The best ones I found were the best buy brand called rocketfish. They're awesome if you can find them maybe ebay. I had 3 different sets of component cables and the rocketfish had the best image quality. The difference was night and day.

My Wii has just been collecting dust the past couple of years. One day I'll go back to it it had some fantastic games. I just have a lot of other stuff to play for now. I always prefer to play games on the original hardware they were built for. I still have my gamecube also.

JUST discovered what a great arcade shooting console the wii is. I made a diy gun peripheral and have been playing Ghost Squad for the past few days. I also plan on playing Resident Evil umbrella Chronicles and Dead Space extraction.

Ghost Squad is awesome. Feels just like being at Dave & Busters.

When I move again I'll probably hook up my Wii unless Switch gets all the best games ported. Mario Galaxy series for me holds a special place in my heart_

@GameboyTroy: does anyone play it

People are still playing it. Its getting less active but its still enough to have full rooms going on or you might join a match in progress.

Yes, me. But playing games from other systems on it like SNES, NES Etc. Also not too long ago I rented from gamefly Punch-Out !! and ExciteTruck cause I missed out on them when they first came out. So yeah.

Just did a round of Wii Sports. The Switch really needs a Wii Sports, IMO - a FREE bundled showcase of truly fun mini-games. Wii Sports is like the Duck Hunt of the modern era - it's not deep, but it's almost timeless in its tactile mindless fun

I'm using it as a paperweight. And that's it. I pretty much walked away from the Wii line years ago.

Keep mine hooked up at all times just in case. My kids play it a lot more than I do, but soon i'm going to have to tackle Skyward Sword.

@itstotallymike: as in using your old cube? I still have mine I had to clean some gunk out the dosk tray dunno what that was or why it was in there. I actually wonder if it would turn on. Did you ever use those old madkatz memory cards those used to corrupt on me all the time

Haven't in years. Was thinking about giving F-Zero GX (GameCube) another spin, but I've been too lazy to connect the Wii to the TV. If I want to play a Wii game, I just play it with the Wii U.

@Celsius765: Yup, I still use mine quite a bit. It's in great shape. I have the GBA adapter, etc. Yeah I actually have one of those MC memory cards. I'm not using it for that reason hahaha. Their controllers were amazing for that system but everything else they touched was trash.

I have me old Wii still attached to the mains and to me telly.

And despite having PS4 I do like to buy some Wii title now and then, and have some 'retro' fun.

At the moment I'm trying to get the hang of Monster Hunter Tri. It's kinda challenging to control with the remotes, but the classic controller feels less accurate so I'll stick with the remotes...

Reason why I got into this game is because I was having so much fun with the hunting missions in Final Fantasy XV. So I thought to give the Monster Hunter another chance. (I had it some years ago, but did not really 'get' it back then)

Added later: I also use Wii to run GC games. I still have GC in top condition, but I prefer to play them on wii as the pic is a bit better.

@jwathas: Not trying to be critical of your tastes, but I'm curious as to why you like the Wii so much better than the Wii-U. I was never very fond of the Wii-U, but in retrospect I was even less fond of the Wii. I never bought a Wii-U, but did buy a Wii, so there is that. But I'd say there are more games worth playing on the Wii-U, especially when you take backwards-comp into consideration.

I do! I mostly use it to play Gamecube games with my friend. It's a shame that we can't access the online features of our Wii games and the Wii Shop Channel anymore. : ( Oh well, at least we can still enjoy our GC and Wii games on it. : )