Yesterday, we brought you the news that Nintendo of America was no longer shipping Metroid Prime Trilogy, a title which had only been released at the end of August 2009. As it turns out, the list of titles Nintendo is no longer shipping runs quite a bit deeper than that.
Coffee with Games (via GoNintendo) followed up with Nintendo, and learned that not only is Metroid Prime Trilogy out of Nintendo’s picture, but so are Battalion Wars 2, Mario Strikers Charged, and Wario Land: Shake It!. Now I’m really glad I got that last one for Christmas.
I wanted to verify this with Nintendo, and did so. And while I was at it, I figured I might as well run down their first-party lineup of games and see what else wasn’t shipping. The answer was a bit surprising.
What follows is the full list of games Nintendo of America has confirmed is no longer shipping:
- Battalion Wars ii
- Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree
- Donkey Kong Barrel Blast
- Endless Ocean
- Excitebots: Trick Racing
- Excite Truck
- Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn
- Mario Strikers Charged
- Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
- Metroid Prime Trilogy
- New Play Control! Pikmin
- Wario Land: Shake It!
- Wario Ware: Smooth Moves
- Wii Fit
- Wii Music
In addition to the above, the confirmation of Pikmin no longer being shipped also brought word that Pikmin 2 is “rumored,” so maybe we’ll see that sooner than later.
Some of these are surprising (Mario Strikers Charged, Wario Ware: Smooth Moves), others are expected (Donkey Kong: Barrel Blast), and others are just sad to see on the list (Excitebots, Excite Truck, Wario Land, Pikmin). Then there’s Wii Fit, which makes sense, given Wii Fit Plus is effectively its replacement.
By the sound of it, though, cases where sequels might be available soon seemed to lead them to mention the upcoming titles, such as Metroid: Other M, Endless Ocean: Blue World, and the aforementioned Pikmin 2. I don’t know whether this is simply their way of moving gamers to the next-best option, figuring one is as good as another, or just trying to push future product, but there it is.
In any case, one might suggest that these games just weren’t doing the numbers Nintendo needed to keep them around, while others– Super Mario Galaxy, Super Paper Mario, and launch title The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess– seem to be doing just fine, as they’re still being shipped.
