The Wii U Is Already A Collector’s Item
When the Wii U was discontinued one year ago, we warned you they were only going to become more scarce from there, and that it was the perfect time to either buy one (if you didn’t own one) or buy a complete-in-box sealed unit (for investment purposes). Now’s the time to either cash in on that investment, or kick yourself for not listening to us.
The common belief would be that the Wii U holds no value, because everybody hates the controller and half of its good exclusives have been ported to the Switch now. One thing, I disagree about the controller….second thing, Switch still doesn’t have a Netflix app (this is the main reason I still have my Wii U plugged in)….third, there’s plenty of value left in Wii U.
And we mean “value” in both the fun factor and the financial sense.
The Wii U had the lowest production rate of any of Nintendo’s home consoles, with just over 13 million out there. Complete and untouched Wii Us are now selling at a starting price of $650 on Amazon. The smaller 8GB version, universally reviled and avoided throughout the machine’s shelf life, is now worth more for that reason: prices start at $700. Some of the pack-in sets and alternate colors sell for even more. The Super Mario 3D World bundle costs $850.
Prices are a little kinder on eBay, but not by much. $500 is a typical price. The best you can hope for with an unopened unit is around $400, which is $50 more than what the Wii U retailed for.
But if all you’re concerned about is just playing it, used Wii Us are plenty cheap and still in abundance. Just think about making that purchase sooner rather than later, because we guarantee these will eventually become scarce too.