Looking to buy a Wii for christmas - backwards compatibility?

[FastRedPonyCar]

so the wife and I want to get a Wii for christmas as our gift to each other and I have read that the new wii's won't play gamecube games. This sucks because I missed out on that entire generation of nintendo games and I want to make sure that I can still go back and play them (like the zelda games) if I want to.

How can I tell if a wii is backwards compatible or not? Is there a design change they made that would indicate any difference or would it be a more nitty gritty method of having to decode the serial number or something?

It's crossed my mind to simply get a refurbished one from EBgames with a warranty and have them test it in the store with a game cube game to make sure it will play it to be certain. I'd assume they would do this if it meant a sale.

any other tips?

[Tikimotel]

Wii redesign is said (more or less confirmed) to loose backwards compatibility.
The Wii-U (the yet to be released) console does not have backwards compatibility (gamecube games)

Wii + backward compatibility = + gamecube controler & memcard sockets (behind covers)
Wii redisign = no more gamecube controler sockets.

[FastRedPonyCar]

ahh ok. so the gamecube controller sockets pretty much are what to look for.