Former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé has admitted the NES and SNES Classic mini consoles were made to help the company as the Wii U struggled.
As spotted by Nintendo Everything, Fils-Aimé spoke at the NYU Game Centre Lecture Series and explained Nintendo was making efforts to make things work during the Wii U era, including killing the 8GB model of the console. "The other thing we did is, in two successive years, we launched those micro legacy devices. If you remember those, right? The small NES and then the following year the small SNES," he explained, "We did that to sustain our business because we needed something to sell at volume come the holiday season. So it was a series of commercial ideas, knowing full well that… you know, the Wii U was on life support."
