Can’t Find a Nintendo Wii? Get a Vii Instead!

Ever heard of the “Vii”, the Chinese knockoff of the now iconic Nintendo Wii? I suppose that this is Nintendo’s answer to their stock shortages!

Just as you’re able to find bootlegged and counterfeit everything (from iPods to iPhones), you are now able to buy a Vii, the fake Wii that is making news everywhere. I’m not too sure who exactly was the first to post details about the Vii online, but I can tell you for sure that I’ve personally witnessed no less than 12 different sources that all had the same information about the Vii on it. Unfortunately no one is able to get their hands on one quite yet, but give it some time as I’m sure one will turn up somewhere.

The Vii (pictured here on the left) is reported to have similar features to the Wii: wireless Viimote’s that are connected via Bluetooth, infrared sensing for motion control, built-in games, and a host of other features found on the Wii. What’s perhaps the most interesting is the fact that the Vii could easily be mistaken for a Wii by someone who isn’t well-versed on what a Wii is (and isn’t).

I’m the kind of person that simply cannot sleep at night until I know absolutely all there is to know about something like this, so I’ve spent a few weeks digging up as much information about the Vii as I could whenever the opportunity arose. I’ve found some pretty interesting information about the Vii, including a “disassembly” video where the Vii is taken apart to show what’s on the inside (I’m still trying to find confirmation that it’s legit).

What We Know

At this point there are a few things that we know for certain:

• The Vii does exist and it is available for purchase in China.

• The Vii does appear to have motion sensing capabilities.

• The Vii has games bundled or burned right into the ROM of the hardware- right now we don’t know which one it is.

• The Vii has an expansion port for what appears to be cartridge-based games.

Unfortunately, nobody here at WiiViewed.com can read Chinese (or any variation or language related to it, actually), so the best that we can offer is a simple “that’s all we got”. What we do have though are some kickass videos of this “amazing” machine in action.

Here’s a commercial (infomercial) for the Vii:

Here’s actual gameplay footage of the Vii: Here’s someone taking the Vii apart, though we haven’t been able to determine if this is authentic or not: I wonder how long it will be until we start seeing “Vivendo Vii’s” on sale on eBay. I’ll buy one just for novelty’s sake!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 4th, 2007 at 2:24 am and is filed under Misc.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.