Nintendo Wii Mini priced at £80 ahead of UK launch

Not sold on the new Nintendo Wii U, but still want to enjoy some budget, family-friendly motion gaming action? Well the new Wii Mini will enable your desires if you're willing to part with £80.

Earlier this week, the Japanese giant finally confirmed that the new, scaled back version of the classic console would be coming to the UK on March 22.

Now the likes of Amazon and Game have placed the console up for pre-order with an £80 price tag, which will give users the smaller black and red-trimmed console, a red Wii Remote Plus and Nunchuck.

Although cheap by console standards, £80 is still slightly more than many were expecting the console to cost in Blighty.

Is it still too expensive?

The Wii Mini is only currently available for sale in Canada where it costs CAN$99, which equates to around £64.

£80 doesn't sound bad, but when you consider that the new Wii Mini does not enable users to connect to the internet - so there'll be no Netflix or iPlayer or access to the Wii Store - it lessens the attraction somewhat.

It also lacks the original Wii's ability to play Nintendo GameCube games, there's no SD card slot and only one USB port.

Parting with another £40 will currently get buyers an original Wii console with full functionality and Mario and Sonic at the Olympics, so it's up for debate just how much of a bargain this Wii Mini is.

There are no games bundled with the Wii Mini device, but as revealed yesterday, Nintendo it is adding a host of classics to its Nintendo Select collection, including Mario Party 8, Wii Sports Resort, Mario Power Tennis and Super Paper Mario.

Via CNET UK