Nintendo will reportedly kill the Wii U this year

Nintendo will reportedly stop making its Wii U gaming console later this year, according to The Nikkei, the world's largest financial newspaper based in Japan.

We first saw the news over at Polygon.

This news isn't really surprising. First of all, reports have pointed to Nintendo debuting and releasing a brand new game console this year - the mysterious NX - so it makes sense that Nintendo would also stop producing its Wii U console around that same time. There's also a good chance the NX can play Wii and Wii U games, so that would effectively make the Wii U hardware obsolete.

Need another reason? Here's a big one: The Wii U just isn't selling. People aren't buying this console - just look at this evidence straight from Nintendo.

Nintendo

As you can see, the Wii U is the worst-selling console Nintendo has ever created (save for possibly the Virtual Boy, which isn't listed here). The Wii U's sales are roughly one-tenth the lifetime sales of Nintendo's previous console, the Wii. And it's only reached about half of the lifetime sales of the Nintendo Gamecube, which was the company's second-worst selling console.

On the bright side, the successor to the Wii U sounds very promising. Here's everything we know about the NX so far.