Wii Miini and Wii U, 2 different products for the future of nintendo. They can make a regular old wii for peanuts these days and sell the thing en masse for maybe 49.99 , if they can build it for 30 dollars or so , it's basically free money.
This way they can differentiate at retail as well. Use a micro laptop sized dvd drive stacked on top of a tiny motherboard with a cellphone sized wifi/blue tooth antenna , have it run on so little power that it only needs an old school AC adaptor like a snes instead of a small power brick and include only a single SD card slot. OH yeah, and use the cheapest plastics that can be bought to make the case.
I think it could be worth it to milk another 2 years of sales out of the old brand while people transition to the new one. Also could lead to better sales in emerging markets.