Digital Foundry, care of Eurogamer, recently got their hands on a Wii Mini, the redesigned original Wii that's exclusive to the Canadian marketplace. And in their tear down of the machine, many questions we've had since day one are finally answered, though plenty more have also raised.
First things first, and as noted in the past already: the thing cannot go online. Everyone knows already that WiFi would not be included, but those assuming that the USB ethernet adapter might work will be disappointed to hear that its not the case.
There is absolutely no trace of the original Wii's ties to online, as minimal as they were; even sections of the Wii's menus that normally reflects network connectivity has been altered or flat out removed.
But the strangest part is how the console does not support component cables either. Even though the Wii didn't produce HD visuals, it at least can interface with modern displays.
Yet with the Wii Mini, only composite cables are supported, the same kind that was shipped with the SNES, over 20 years ago. Yikes.
Also, the unit itself was described as being bulky, and by going by the picture above, it's not all that smaller than the normal Wii, which makes one wonder where the Mini subtitle comes from.
In the end, Digital Foundry had this to say:
"So what we have here is a crippled version of a six-year-old console that offers the absolute base level of functionality – and nothing more…
Suffice to say that this was proving to be one of the most disappointing hardware reviews we'd yet undertaken. The Wii Mini isn't just a bad product, it's a profoundly uninteresting one too, easily crossing our boredom threshold within an hour of the initial unboxing…"
