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Wii

ConsoleHome video game console2006

Wii

The Wii ( WEE) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America, and in December 2006 for most other regions of the world.

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First released
2006
Made by
Foxconn
Generation
7
Units sold
101.63 million

Overview

The Wii ( WEE) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America, and in December 2006 for most other regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major home game console, following the GameCube, and is a seventh-generation console alongside Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3.

The Nintendo president, Satoru Iwata, focused on appealing to a broader audience through innovative gameplay, rather than competing with Microsoft and Sony on raw computational power. Shigeru Miyamoto and Genyo Takeda led development, which was initially codenamed Revolution. The Wii emphasized new forms of interaction, particularly through its wireless controller, the Wii Remote, which featured motion-tracking controls and could recognize gestures and function as a pointing device. The Wii was Nintendo's first console with native Internet connectivity, enabling online gaming and digital distribution via the Wii Shop Channel. It also supported wireless connectivity with the handheld Nintendo DS console for select games. Early models were backward-compatible with GameCube games and accessories. Nintendo later released cheaper versions: the RVL-101, without GameCube compatibility, and the Wii Mini, which removed features such as online connectivity and SD card storage.

Because of Nintendo's reduced focus on computational power, the Wii and its games were less expensive to produce than those of its competitors. It was extremely popular at launch, and was in short supply in some markets. Wii Sports, a pack-in game, became the Wii's killer app while new entries in the Super Mario, Legend of Zelda, Pokémon, and Metroid series helped boost its popularity. Within a year, the Wii became the best-selling console of the seventh generation and a social phenomenon in many countries. Total lifetime sales of the Wii reached over 101 million units. As of April 2026, it is the seventh-best-selling console of all time, and Nintendo's second best-selling home console after the Nintendo Switch surpassed it in 2021. The Wii was discontinued in October 2013, though the Wii Mini continued production for a few years, and some of its third party online services persisted until 2019.

Specifications

Manufacturer
Foxconn
Developer
Nintendo IRD
Type
Home video game console
Generation
Seventh
Released
NA November 19, 2006; JP December 2, 2006; AUS December 7, 2006; EU December 8, 2006; ZA September 30, 2007; KR April 26, 2008; TW July 12, 2008; IND September 30, 2008; HK December 12, 2009
Discontinued
AUS November 2011; JP October 20, 2013; EU October 24, 2013
Processor
IBM Broadway @ 729 MHz
Graphics
ATI Hollywood @ 243 MHz
Memory
24 MB 1T-SRAM + 64 MB GDDR3 SDRAM
Storage
512 MB flash memory
Connectivity
Wi-Fi (802.11IEEE 802.11b-1999, b/IEEE 802.11g-2003, g) , Bluetooth 2.0 , 2 × USB 2.0
Backward compatibility
GameCube
Predecessor
GameCube
Successor
Wii U
Units sold
101.63 million

Models

  • Wii mini
  • Starlight Wii Gaming Station
  • Wii Family Edition
  • Initial version

Model names as listed by IGDB.

Games

26 Wii games are written up here, with trophies, patches and what still works online.

See the Wii games

More from Nintendo

Sources

The overview is adapted from Wikipedia and shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence.

Checked October 2026.

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