Nintendo: “Games and content are specific to each Wii, not users”

Want to upgrade your Wii to the new black? Then you’ll have to hold on to your old Wii to play previously purchased games, forfeit them altogether, or buy them a second time, Wired reports.

“It shows extreme lack of foresight on their part,” says Wii owner Nathan Gillmore. “Did they really think the general public would be content to have all of their purchased content bound to a specific device?”

Much like non-transferable DSi downloads or playing games online with friends, it’s obvious Nintendo didn’t really think much about it. In other words, the company is great at making games, not so great at making operating systems, multiplayer networks, or user identification programs.

Wired reports that Nintendo might be willing to bend the rules if you call and plead with customer support. But not everyone is so lucky. And even then, you have to send both Wiis into Nintendo for them to make the switch, a snail mail process that takes two weeks to complete.

Of course, this is all at Nintendo’s discretion. It’s their business model. And they can do whatever they want, complaining nerds be damned. But I imagine 70+ million Wii owners will take issue with this at some point: either today in the hopes of switching to black, or when they ultimately decide to upgrade to Nintendo’s next home console.

What do you think of Nintendo’s single-system download policy? Since (some) cell phones do it, is it okay for Nintendo to do the same? Speak up, readers!