Nintendo ending Wii repairs after nearly 15 years

The Wii is far and away Nintendo's best-selling home console of all time. Though it may not be Nintendo's all-time top seller – the Nintendo DS holds that title – the Wii did manage to beat out all of Nintendo's other home consoles by tens of millions of sales. Because of that success, the Wii has found enduring popularity, but as the adage goes: All good things must come to an end.

Nintendo stopped making the Wii years ago, but today, it put another nail in the coffin for the machine by announcing that it will halt its Wii repair service in Japan. That's set to happen on March 31st, 2020, so those who have an old, broken Wii sitting around may want to send it into Nintendo sooner rather than later.

It seems that Nintendo's hand was forced in this case, as the company says it's becoming difficult to secure spare parts for the Wii. It warns that it may end the repair service early if it runs out of available stock. The same goes for Wii accessories like the Wii remote, with Nintendo saying that once it runs out of stock, it'll be halting repairs.

That Nintendo is having a tough time procuring replacement parts for the Wii isn't much of a surprise. The Wii was released in Japan on November 19th, 2006 and here in the US on December 2nd of the same year. In other words, the Wii's hardware is more or less ancient at this point, which would definitely have an impact on how hard it is to obtain.

In any case, the fact that Nintendo is only now ending its repair program more than 13 years after the Wii debuted is a testament to how popular it was. We'll let you know if Nintendo announces an early end to Wii repairs, but otherwise, March 31st is the date to mark on your calendars.