Update: In a statement given to Japanese site IT Daily (Google Translate) Nintendo stressed that the Nikkei article is "not an announcement from the company," and says it "plans to continue [Wii U] production [into the] next fiscal year and beyond."

Original Story:

Nintendo's Japanese arm has assured investors that the company will unveil its new gaming console, currently code-named Nintendo NX, by the end of this year, but it hasn't had nearly as much to say about the future of its current major home product, the Nintendo Wii U. That might be because its time is nigh. In spite of a few major Wii U exclusives slated to launch this year—particularly a major new Legend of Zelda game—a major Japanese business publication has now claimed that the hardware in question will cease production by the end of 2016.

A Wednesday morning report from Japan's Nikkei pegs this year as the final year of Wii U hardware production—a crazy prediction, to be sure, considering that its console successor doesn't even have an official name or release date. However, that report also backs up its claim with the allegation that some Wii U accessories have already been discontinued. Worth noting: Nikkei's report did not go so far as to attach a 2016 release window to the new console.

If true, that may explain why Japan saw some substantial Wii U shortages in the past few months. A Nintendo World Report story in February pointed to a substantial sales drop-off in Japan after selling 250,000 Wii U consoles in December of last year and more than 40,000 consoles in January 2016. That count dropped to 4,000 for the first week of February.

Such a hardware cut-off, after only four years, would make the Wii U the shortest-lived Nintendo home console by far, compared to seven years for the prior console, the Nintendo Wii, and a whopping 20 years for the original Japanese Famicom system. Still, that'd give the Wii U a leg up on an even shorter-lived console: Sega's famed crash-and-burn hardware bow-out, the Dreamcast, which didn't even cross the two-year mark

The only saving grace for such a hardware cut-off is the possibility that the next Nintendo console will feature backwards compatibility—and therefore, Wii U-like features, which would add legitimacy to a Destructoid report that claimed it had discovered images of the Nintendo NX's controller, which appeared to put an entire screen on its face. At any rate, Nintendo will need some hardware to support that new 2016 Zelda game, so it'll be interesting to see how the company's hardware story plays out for the rest of the year—or if its raging Miitomo success on Japan's iOS and Android marketplaces makes the company consider shifting gears even more. That app, which launched a few days ago, is currently topping both mobile marketplaces' charts.