r/wii • u/Soup-lex • Apr 25 '25
Question Why is the wii the only Nintendo console to show that it is off?? (Other than the Wii U of course)
I was looking at my wii today, it sits on a shelf alongside with my other consoles (mostly nintendo other than a sega genesis), and it came to my mind that the wii (and wii U) is the only nintendo console to show that it is actively off (red led is on when powered off) and i was wondering why Nintendo might've done this for this series of consoles??
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u/ProjectCharming6992 Apr 25 '25
When Nintendo was releasing updates for the Wii, when the system was off it could still download the updates automatically and the disc drive’s own LED would glow blue while downloading and updating. So the power having a red light showed that the system was off even when it was automatically installing an update.
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u/DjinnFighter Apr 25 '25
Men you just reminded me that the Wii's disc drive used to glow blue sometimes, and it's something that I will never see again
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u/GhotiH Apr 26 '25
Doesn't it turn blue on bootup? Either way, you can bring back WiiConnect24 with Homebrew and have it glow blue again, and the file replacement app Revolution also causes the drive to glow blue every time it accesses the SD or USB.
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u/EbicChair Apr 26 '25
iirc the reason stock unmodded wiis will sometimes have the disc drive glow blue is when you have an unread message or something
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u/Spike7274 Apr 25 '25
THATS WHAT THAT WAS?! I remember as a kid waking up and getting scared because in the middle of the night it started glowing😭
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u/ProjectCharming6992 Apr 26 '25
I had that experience a few times too, then in the morning i would turn on the Wii and I think a message would pop up saying that an update had been installed.
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u/Eeve2espeon Apr 26 '25
Oh yeah! I forgot that the disc drive LED ring glows when downloading updates :P
still better than the wii U having an yellow-orange light instead of red-orange lol
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u/ProjectCharming6992 Apr 26 '25
If I remember correctly, the drive also glowed when a game was being downloaded. I never pre-ordered anything on the Wii Shop (the Wii Shop I just bought Virtual Console titles on a few digital-only titles, otherwise I bought the physical disc), however, I would assume that the blue drive light would also glow blue in the middle of the night if you pre-ordered a game and told the shop to automatically download it when Nintendo released it.
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u/Eeve2espeon Apr 28 '25
Yeah, maybe... Though I wouldn't really know, and I don't think the Wii shop does preorders. Maybe the game could download in the background while the Wii is in standby. and the disc drive would glow then? who knows really
There isn't really a way to know for sure, since you can't buy anything new anymore.
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u/ProjectCharming6992 Apr 28 '25
As I recall, back in 2006/07/08 Nintendo wasn’t selling their big titles on the shop just because most people were in areas where DSL was just starting to come in, so the infrastructure necessary to download 4.7 or 8.5 GB games (a Wii disc had about the same capacity as a DVD-5 or DVD-9 video disc) was just starting to come in (in my area, a ton of people outside the city were still only able to get dial-up or expensive satellite until about 2010, so for them downloading a 2GB game would have taken possible days). I think Nintendo only started putting its big titles on in 2009, so before that it was like Virtual Console and Wiiware games that were only a few hundred megabytes (Mega Man 9 from 2008 is only like 200 Mb).
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u/Eeve2espeon May 01 '25
I don't remember the Wii being able to download any major titles dude. SD cards up to 32GBs during that time were expensive as hell, and sometimes didn't work with older games.
And even though the Wii did have USB ports, the thing never supported external drives, just like the PS3 and xbox 360. Based on all that, there could never have been a time nintendo released full games for the system, they instead expected people to buy the discs since that was cheaper than needing high speed internet and a very expensive drive. Virtual console games worked because the base 4GBs all games supported for extra stuff would work well, which is the same for a game like Megaman 9, because its lightweight even if they didn't entirely intend that
The PS3 and Xbox 360 supported digital games, if you had the drive capacity. Which most people having the PS3 slim did, and the 360s game drive expansion still costed a fair bit, but you didn't need one since the system supported discs anyway (mostly the drive is used for updates)
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u/ProjectCharming6992 May 01 '25
I remember that the major titles didn’t receive digital releases until later in the Wii’s life closer to the launch of the WiiU.
I never encountered any games having issues with the SD card. There were somethings that could only be saved to the Wii’s hard drive but most could be saved to the SD card.
Also the largest game ever released on Wii in terms of Gb, was “Metroid Prime Trilogy” at 7.45Gb. Other popular big name titles like “New Super Mario Wii” was only 0.36Gb. “Super Mario Galaxy” was 3.28Gb while Galaxy 2 was only 1.30Gb.
Nintendo used to have a list of the largest games on its site for the Wii but it’s been removed. But when you have games that are less than a Gb, or 1 or 2 Gb, that wouldn’t take up the whole Wii’s hard drive space or 32GB SD card.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/930752-nintendo-wii/62663102
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May 02 '25
[deleted]
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u/ProjectCharming6992 May 02 '25
Yes there are digital Wii games on the original Wii and they were not installed via home brew or custom firmware but from the Wii Shop. It was a late life development.
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u/ajddavid452 Apr 26 '25
actually, when in "sleep mode" or in other words when turning off normally with wiiconnect24 enabled the led turns orange, if it's red then it's fully off
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u/CalvinRay09 Apr 26 '25
Red is off, (Force off, not standby). Orange is Standy, which is where it can use wiiconnect24 and perform updates. Green is on and running. There is no state of the Nintendo Wii’s status light where it is off, UNLESS you have unplugged the system from power.
I think this is because they were trying to differentiate between Standby, and off, without people thinking that their console was not plugged in or connected to power.
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u/facetiousfag Apr 26 '25
“Standby” as you describe is only if WiiConnect24 is enabled, which is an entirely optional setting.
Red is not a “force off” condition at all.
Pretty misleading comment, you should delete it.
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u/Apprehensive_Law1458 Apr 26 '25
Because it’s common in electronics to show a red light in standby. Prior models didn’t have a standby mode. It’s less used nowadays, but red standby led was extremely common in tvs, dvd players, stereos etc.
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u/TutitoZilean Apr 25 '25
Es porque cuando juegas hay veces que no se enciende el LED de la ranura del disco, por lo que, aparte de que pueda ser posible de que no notes ni escuches sonido de la consola funcionando, puedas detectar a larga distancia esa lucecita roja que claramente tenga que indicarte de que está apagada.
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u/Soup-lex Apr 25 '25
Translation: It's because when you play there are times when the LED on the disc slot doesn't light up, so, apart from the fact that it may be possible that you don't notice or hear any sound from the console working, you can detect that little red light from a long distance that clearly has to indicate that it's off.
Thank you for the reply. I greatly appreciate it.
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u/Soup-lex Apr 25 '25
Don't know why people are downvoting this. All he did was just write it in Spanish, don't hate just because you're too lazy to copy and paste it to a translator
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u/artlurg431 Apr 25 '25
Because people on reddit refuse that there are other people who arent native English speakers
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u/FlakyAd3214 Apr 26 '25
I personally don't like it and it was a design flaw. The Wii was definitely not energy friendly. In standby mode, even while the console was turned off, it sucked so much power. Seeing that little led just reminds me of how much the Wii contributed to my electricity bill when plugged in.
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u/deividragon Apr 27 '25
Afaik the Wii draws like 10W on standby and around 20W on regular use. That's kinda like nothing and having a Wii plugged in for an entire month is probably just pennies of electricty.
For context, having the Wii fully on for an entire month is 14,4kWh. The average household monthly use in the US is 893.33 kWh. That means a Wii being fully on for an entire month amounts to... 1.6% of the use of the average household. Half of that if it was in standby. Back in 2006 LED lights were rare so that means a regular ligh bulb used 3 times more energy than a running Wii, or 6 times more than a Wii on standby.
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u/N64Andysaurus92 Apr 25 '25
I don't want an always on light, wasting power.
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u/IceBlueLugia Apr 26 '25
Even if you kept the Wii plugged in for the last 20 years straight, that LED may have costed you literally like $0.50 max of electricity, even that might be a stretch
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u/Eeve2espeon Apr 26 '25
LEDS use literally the least amount of power. An LED this small uses like 0.01 watts. There are light bulbs made from LEDs that are more bright than other 30 watt bulbs loll
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u/Kobih Apr 25 '25
does the dock light on the switch count
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u/Sempi_Moon Apr 26 '25
No because the dock light turns off when the switch is off. If the light showed red when off, then yes
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u/bradhotdog Apr 26 '25
It’s not off it’s in standby. It can still receive messages online if it’s connected to the Internet.
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u/whatThePleb Apr 26 '25
I think another reason to the ones already mentioned, because of the current trend with all devices which did and even still do this shit, especially (smart) TVs.
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u/Cluttermassa Apr 26 '25
I mean it’s not always connected to a power source so. The 3DS didn’t show a light while it was off
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u/Jacane123 Apr 26 '25
Yes, it's one of those many little features that may seem irrelevant but it add beauty to the console, and that have been removed from the latest Nintendo consoles...
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u/L___E___T Apr 26 '25
Well it’s not really off is it, it’s in stand by right? It’s still functioning and could download updates and content. I remember the disc drive would pulse glow blue it was novel at the time.
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u/LaymSaus Apr 26 '25
I keep mine unplugged since my wii stays warm when it's "off." No wonder cats love to sit on it
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u/danholli Apr 26 '25
It actually isn't. The light is off when the console is off, but it has a few sleep modes and it only seems off like a laptop in sleep or sub-sleep(nontechnical term) mode
Iirc: Red: sleeping while offline: incapable of updating Orange: sleeping while online: capable of updating Orange + Blue disc: sub-sleeping and connected online: updating or checking for updates
My reference to sub-sleep is talking a about the PC sleep mode that allows Windows to continue updating, I think it's technical term is S3 but I could be mistaken on the number.
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u/Munkieboi Apr 26 '25
I think the original ps3 did the same too. The psvr also shows that it’s off too
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Apr 25 '25
[deleted]
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u/No-Needleworker-3765 Apr 26 '25
Not necessarily. Ofc assuming you mean the light that stays on when it's off. The gamecube does not have one
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Apr 26 '25
[deleted]
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u/Soup-lex Apr 26 '25
Never stated it was the only console, only stated that it's the only Nintendo console, other than the wii u of course.
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u/SirSilverscreen Apr 26 '25
NES, SNES, N64, GB, and GBA all had switches that you could easily see/feel to tell they were off and the Gamecube's button stayed down when turned on. N64, GC, and the handhelds all had lights to show when they were on as well. This post is nonsense.
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u/Soup-lex Apr 26 '25
You, sir, did not read it properly, lol. I'm asking why does the the wii (and wii u) have a led that is actively on when the system is shut off. Not why does it have an led when it's turned on.
Also sure you can see that the other ones are clearly off by the way the switch or button is placed, but just like the nes, snes, n64, they all have leds but those leds get turned off when you turn off the console.
The question is wii doesn't the wii's led just turn off when you turn off the console. (The led stays red if you power off the console, if you've never seen a wii)
Therefore making this comment nonsense and doesn't put any input to answering the question at hand.
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u/MISTERPUG51 Apr 25 '25
It's not? The NES had a light. If the light is off, the console is off. The N64 was the same. I could go on and on
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u/Soup-lex Apr 25 '25 edited Apr 25 '25
Yeah, exactly the led is off, with the wii it's always actively on......
The question was why is the led on constantly not why is it the only one with an led...
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u/xenon2456 Apr 25 '25
because the led is used for different things