Wii on longer plays Gamecube games?

I was in Best Buy today and for a brief moment considered getting a Nintendo Wii. I questioned whether the system had built-in Wi-Fi and saw a notice that read 'This Will is not compatable with Gamecube games'. This leaves me with two questions:

1. When did the Wii do away with Gamecube compatability and why?
2. Is the Wii with built-in Wi-Fi?

1. Sometime last summer. The black systems don't play GC games. You need the original one for that.
2. Yes

The new black ones do not play GC games the black one I own does indeed play GC games.

You are better off getting a used white Wii at this point, they are cheaper and play Gamecube games. The advantage to this over just getting a Gamecube is that you can play GC games via component cable on a HDTV without having to buy massively expensive cables that are no longer made for gamecube.

BTW, IMO some GC games look better than some WIi games on a HDTV (if you are using a Wii via component cable).

You can buy cheap component cables from monoprice, I have them and they work just fine.

They updated the wii to make it smaller by removing the game cube playback.

How can you distinguish which black Wii's will play GC and which won't?

They won't have the Cube ports on the side. If you're looking at new boxes, if the Wii is horizontal, it won't play Cube games.

[quote name='KingBroly']They won't have the Cube ports on the side. If you're looking at new boxes, if the Wii is horizontal, it won't play Cube games.[/QUOTE]

Like this?


As far as the Wii being horizontal, you're talking about the picture on the box, right? So...

non-BC


BC

That's right.

Cool, thanks.

[quote name='Scorch']1. Sometime last summer. The black systems don't play GC games. You need the original one for that.
2. Yes[/QUOTE]

[quote name='bjstucker']The new black ones do not play GC games the black one I own does indeed play GC games.[/QUOTE]

You guys might want to get your facts straight, it's pretty much every Wii that was released (I.e. Manufactured) AFTER the Mario Anniversary red Wii that will not play GC games.

My black Wii (summer Sports Resort edition plays GC games just fine, has all of the GC controller ports, etc) and I got that right before the red Mario Wii was released. I got mine on the summer of 2010 and if my google-fu prooves correct (the mario edition came out that fall, Nov. 7, 2010) those were some of the late systems that could do BC before the redesign took effect and they released the gimped ones.

And I see King Broly covered the differences on how to determine which is which, just wanted to clear those other misconceptions up for anyone reading the thread at a later time.

This is old news anyway. Besides don't even bother getting the 2011+ Wiis unless you want one in blue.

[quote name='uncle5555']You guys might want to get your facts straight, it's pretty much every Wii that was released (I.e. Manufactured) AFTER the Mario Anniversary red Wii that will not play GC games.

My black Wii (summer Sports Resort edition plays GC games just fine, has all of the GC controller ports, etc) and I got that right before the red Mario Wii was released. I got mine on the summer of 2010 and if my google-fu prooves correct (the mario edition came out that fall, Nov. 7, 2010) those were some of the late systems that could do BC before the redesign took effect and they released the gimped ones.

And I see King Broly covered the differences on how to determine which is which, just wanted to clear those other misconceptions up for anyone reading the thread at a later time.[/QUOTE]

You might want to get your facts straight. The Mario Kart Wii bundles (which were released after the Red Anniversary Wii) DO have backward compatibility, and those are the most likely ones to be found in store with GCN backward compatibility, although pickings are slim at this point.

The only Wii bundles released so far without GCN BC are the Black NSMBW bundle (with Mario riding Yoshi on the box) that came out last October and the Blue one that came out for Black Friday last year. Anything before October 2011 has backward compatibility.