The Worst Console Redesigns

So funny thing about the Wii Mini and it's super niche desirability, I work at a local retro game store here in Canada and shortly after I started working the government of Canada approved the Wii Mini as an item a prisoner can bring in with them/have dropped off so you can imagine my surprise when one day on my shift the phone starts ringing and the caller ID shows it's from a correctional facility. I pick up the phone and ask if there's anything I can help out with and it's the manager asking if we had any Wii Minis in stock because (I phrase I never thought I'd hear) "the prisoners are going crazy for the Wii Minis and we can't get enough of them" and from that day forward literally EVERY call we get about Wii Minis is someone asking for one for a Pen Pack (a searched and approved gift for an inmate) and funnily enough they always ask for the God father game on the Wii and the Scarface game too. So in retrospect hey the Wii mini is kinda neat because it's super loved by prisoners lol, PS1s are also popular too.

If I had a dollar for every time Scott talked about the Wii Mini, I too could have enough money to afford a flingsmash to play every single day.

fun fact about the wii mini: there was actually one more thing nintendo removed from the wii mini: the capacitors for filtering component video. that meant that, even if you had the component av cables, you couldn’t even use them, and were forced to use the included composite cables. it also meant that if you owned a third party hdmi adapter, you couldn’t even use that.

N2DSXL is the definitive 3DS for softmodders, purely because of the fact that the microSD slot is right next to the game slot. It's got the same power as the N3DSXL, but it's so nice not having to take the backplate off just to access the microSD. The Flap also means that the slots survived the years of leaving it to sit in a drawer and collect dust. Also, the special editions are the best special edition consoles we've gotten imo. The Hyrule Shield? The Pokéball version? The Pikachu version? Come on people

My guess is the wii mini was an easy way of getting rid of extra part inventory

The New 2DS XL was made specifically for people like me: poor people who desperately needed a replacement for their old 3DS without completely cheaping out for a 2DS There are few of us but we are proud

The Wii Mini was funny, because it was basically free with the purchase of Mario Kart Wii and a Wiimote + Nunchuk.

I remember looking at some old press releases from 2012 for the Wii Mini, and one of the reasons cited by Nintendo of Canada for why it was only distributed there first was because of the color scheme. The color scheme.

Scott not owning a PS4 has to be the most surprising thing I've heard all week

The reason why the SNES redesign is called the SNES Junior by fans is because the Japanese version is officially called the Super Famicom Junior

As I understood it at the time, the Wii Mini was a soft launch in Canada because different provincial and municipal authorities wanted a cheaper SKU to buy in bulk from Nintendo for use in schools, hospitals, assisted living centres, nursing homes, etc.

The Wii Mini technically takes up MORE space than the other Wiis because you have to leave space for the disc tray to open, versus having the other Wiis disc just slide in

For as functionally pointless as it is, I always loved the Wii Mini. The Famicom red was slick, and it was so fun to pop open and close the disc tray

I like to think that this 3x3 foot chunk of Scott’s carpet is the cleanest piece of flooring in his whole house

The 2DS XL's bottom dual cameras was to HELP with the AR features of the system. The cameras were closer to your hands to help you aim with it better

I love Scott's point about the "super cheap" redesigns coming out when it was just cheaper to get a used/refurbished version of the design with more features, because I bought a PSP 1000 and several games, when I was in high school, for a hundred bucks. The Go came out shortly after and was more than double that.

I saw the PS3Fat Model at my cousin's house and was horrified that thing could kill a child if it wanted, my god it's huge

Scotts historic hatred of the PS4 slim is insane. It is a perfectly fine looking console. I don't think it is inferior to the OG PS4

2:48 - "Does anybody else kind of ever change whether their system is vertical or horizontal?" Gotta give shoutouts to the PS2, whose logo was rotatable so it would always look intentional depending on how you stood your system. Obsessed with that little design bonus.

The PS5 slim is absolutely ludicrous💀 imagine paying $500+ for a wobbly ass console. They took a perfectly fine design and completely ruined it for no reason.