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Will the Wii U be a valuable collector's item in 15 years?

BigBooper

BigBooper

Member
I'm deciding what to do with my Wii U. Everything works perfectly so I can either sell it or store it to hopefully become valuable. It was not a popular system, as everyone knows, so there's not a ton of them out there. That should mean that it's more likely to be scarce, so more likely to be valuable, but at the same time, it doesn't have hardly any exclusive games anymore since they almost all got ported to Switch so there's not really any gaming value to drive the price up.

There's a lot a pieces to the Wii U that could go wrong in that time too. Batteries in the gamepad and system, whatever the gyro meters are getting corroded. A lot of things to go wrong if you store it.

I'm more inclined to believe it will never be all that valuable, like the Virtual Boy, and that I don't want to deal with it. I'd hate to be kicking myself in 15 years if it's worth thousands though.
 
belmarduk

belmarduk

Member
I doubt it. You can get a Virtual Boy for around what the MSRP would've been and those are far rarer.
The Wii U sold 13.56 million.
 
Neff

Neff

Member
It's getting that way now, especially considering they did so many LE bundles for it.

Ml4v5z.png


While there's not many games left on Wii U that you can't get on Switch, it was uniquely weird and retains an underdog prestige which seems to add value. The Gamepad isn't sold separately outside of Japan either, so this will also contribute to shortages over time. When I had to replace mine I was shocked by how expensive Wii Us were selling for.

belmarduk said:
I doubt it. You can get a Virtual Boy for around what the MSRP would've been and those are far rarer.
The Wii U sold 13.56 million.
Click to expand...

The VB isn't very collectable because it's, well, complete shit. Wii U for some reason is more attractive to collectors.
 
Fbh

Fbh

Member
You might get more for it than now, but I doubt it will ever be truly valuable.

Unlike a lot of other failed systems, you can legally play an enhanced version of almost every WiiU games somewhere else
 
Northeastmonk

Northeastmonk

Gold Member
I just recently bought an N64 game on the Wii U eShop. I think the console is not appreciated enough for the content it offers. You can even get NDS games on the eShop. I didn’t bother with the Castlevania Advanced collection because I own them on my Wii U. It has all the Metroid, Golden Sun, and other great GBA games on there. It’s one of the best retro emulators from Nintendo. I don’t know if I see it going up in price. I still look at my original Wii and it looks like someone would pay around $10 to $15 for it. I’d say the games are probably worth more than the console is. Unless of course you have a Wii U that is new CIB.
 
RoadHazard

RoadHazard

Gold Member
Definitely not. It's not a desirable system, most of its good games are on Switch, and while it sold poorly it's not like there are only 100 of them out there.
 
S

SpongebobSquaredance

Unconfirmed Member
belmarduk said:
Perhaps not in your funny Australian dollars, but you certainly can get a used one for that in the US.
Click to expand...
The cheapest I could found was still 350 US dollars. I don't know how much the Virtual Boy was at release, but I think that's still somewhat expensive.
 
nush

nush

Gold Member
For a complete and fully functional Wii U boxed, absolutely but it will take longer than 15 years. It's not about the exclusivity of the library but Nintendo competionists wanting all the systems.
Systems are going to get stripped over the following years just for the gamepad, so a complete one will be much harder to find.
 
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Skifi28

Skifi28

Member
A wii U with tons of virtual console games installed? Sure. A stock one with boxed games you can also get on switch? Unlikely. So download tons of stuff and hope your storage doesn't crap on you.
 
Deerock71

Deerock71

Member
Look at this watch. It's worthless. Ten dollars from a vendor in the street. Take it out and bury in the sand for a thousand years and it becomes priceless. Men would kill for it. Men like you and me.
 
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cireza

cireza

Banned
Skifi28 said:
A wii U with tons of virtual console games installed? Sure. A stock one with boxed games you can also get on switch? Unlikely. So download tons of stuff and hope your storage doesn't crap on you.
Click to expand...
You can softmod.

Overall, it will be like OG Xbox to me : the most valuable system for players, because of softmodding. Wii U opens up emulation for a ton of consoles, offers a proper HDMI output, offers handheld play, plays Wii U, Wii and GC games natively. You can't really beat this value.

Xbox OG is pretty much the same but for CRT. Still incredibly valuable to me in 2021, but not worth much money actually.
 
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G

gundalf

Member
I tend to say no but the hard dependency to the Gamepad puts it in a weird spot where it's hard to tell how the situation of complete and working units will look like in a decade or two.
 
DGrayson

DGrayson

Mod Team and Bat Team
Staff Member
I've got mine (xenoblade bundle) with most all the good exclusives and I'm planning on keeping it to sell it someday. But I still play it. Was playing it today with my son.
 
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Calverz

Calverz

Member
100% will be. It’s unique and has lot of pieces. Not that many were sold and it will be harder to find complete sets in the future. Also, although lots of games been ported to switch there are some that are better and built around the tablet controller like Mario maker and pikmin.
 
Deerock71

Deerock71

Member
Calverz said:
100% will be. It’s unique and has lot of pieces. Not that many were sold and it will be harder to find complete sets in the future. Also, although lots of games been ported to switch there are some that are better and built around the tablet controller like Mario maker and pikmin.
Click to expand...

It will be a priceless Devil's Third machine.
 
dreamcastluvr

dreamcastluvr

Member
BigBooper said:
I'm deciding what to do with my Wii U. Everything works perfectly so I can either sell it or store it to hopefully become valuable. It was not a popular system, as everyone knows, so there's not a ton of them out there. That should mean that it's more likely to be scarce, so more likely to be valuable, but at the same time, it doesn't have hardly any exclusive games anymore since they almost all got ported to Switch so there's not really any gaming value to drive the price up.

There's a lot a pieces to the Wii U that could go wrong in that time too. Batteries in the gamepad and system, whatever the gyro meters are getting corroded. A lot of things to go wrong if you store it.

I'm more inclined to believe it will never be all that valuable, like the Virtual Boy, and that I don't want to deal with it. I'd hate to be kicking myself in 15 years if it's worth thousands though.
Click to expand...
In 15 years you’ll be able to hold a hard drive containing the complete WiiU library, perfectly emulated and enhanced, in the palm of your hand. No one will need a WiiU console itself.
As far as collectibility goes, it’ll be similar to how legacy consoles from 15-20 years ago are viewed; only the special editions or sealed NIB are worth any serious money.
 
S

Saint Boot

Banned
The only thing that keeps me from getting rid of my wii and wiiu is the fact that a few of the games I really want ported are not on the switch yet if ever. That and I downloaded games from their Wii Shop that the Switch does not offer outside their rental service.

I also really miss the Tv screen setup for the games and other programs on the wii and wii u user interface and that quirky shop music.
 
J

jaysius

Banned
baphomet said:
No. It'll be more along the lines of the Virtual Boy.



It's a digital signal. HDMI will be compatible with everything well after 30 years.
Click to expand...
Ok sure.

There are flies in the oniment like HDCP quirks and other bullshit.

I’m sure people 20 years ago said the same thing about CRT displays.
 
Kuranghi

Kuranghi

Member
jaysius said:
30 years we won’t even have anything compatible with hdmi.
Click to expand...

Old man in shop talking to me in 30 years: "I'm looking for an adaptor to convert from HDMI to GYPW"
Me: "Its gonna cost you an arm an a leg if you want good quality conversion, better to just upgrade to a Holo-TV with GYPW ports tbh mate"
 
Kuranghi

Kuranghi

Member
Its funny you ask this because a woman came in and told me she just bought a second hand Wii today and she wanted to convert from composite to HDMI because her current TV has HDMI only and I told her to buy a Wii U lol
 
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TLZ

TLZ

Banned
Neff said:
It's getting that way now, especially considering they did so many LE bundles for it.

Ml4v5z.png


While there's not many games left on Wii U that you can't get on Switch, it was uniquely weird and retains an underdog prestige which seems to add value. The Gamepad isn't sold separately outside of Japan either, so this will also contribute to shortages over time. When I had to replace mine I was shocked by how expensive Wii Us were selling for.



The VB isn't very collectable because it's, well, complete shit. Wii U for some reason is more attractive to collectors.
Click to expand...
Many of the expensive games are shit though.
 
nush

nush

Gold Member
Nevan said:
I also really miss the Tv screen setup for the games and other programs on the wii and wii u user interface and that quirky shop music.
Click to expand...

Gamepad was the only TV remote I'd never lose. Awesome quirky feature.
 
Astral Dog

Astral Dog

Member
Not when all games have improved versions on Switch, right now mostly lacks Zelda HD ports and Xenoblade X(the latter pretty forgetteable imo)
 
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