Nintendo DS and Wii Wi-Fi Connection Service to End May 20

From DualShockers

As of tomorrow (May 20), many Wii, Nintendo DS, and Nintendo DSi games will be affected by the discontinuation of Wi-Fi Connection. This includes online play, matchmaking, and leaderboards. Online play for Wii U and Nintendo 3DS games will be unaffected, however, this does affect Wii mode on Wii U and Nintendo DS games played on 3DS family systems. Other areas such as access to the Wii Shop Channel, video-on-demand services, and the Nintendo DSi Shop are not affected as well.

Nintendo offers a complete list of games and services that will be affected. Players can still access games in offline mode.

“We at Nintendo sincerely thank our fans for their continued support of our company’s legacy systems. Your enthusiasm for games made for these systems speaks to their longevity, and the passion of Nintendo fans.”

This sounds terrible... I don't understand why they're doing this, to make people want a Wii U maybe?

Really sucks. 'Tis a sad day. I'm definitely gonna miss the free online. It had some great online games.

This is no surprise. They want people to focus on the 3ds and WiiU.

stupid stupid stupid!

The Wii is a legacy system??

@CyberLips:

everything is legacy as soon as new systems come out.

not great, not bad.

just par for the course really.

Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection runs on Gamespy. The reason the DS and Wii games are shutting down is because Gamespy is shutting down. It's not something Nintendo chose to do, they really have no way of stopping it.

Well, we learn something every day.

*mind blown*

100 million + sold and they couldn't even give their us 2 years. Oh well, not like there was shit on that system worth playing online anyways. What a slap in the face either way.

Gonna miss Pokemon Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, Black, White, Black 2, and White 2's multiplayers.

T~T

Debatable if it's a legacy system. It has "effectively" been dead for a couple of years in most people's eyes, but it is technically still being sold in stores to this day (albeit with a gimped model that can't go online anyway)

This is the first I've heard of it. Is there no uproar from sheep about this? It seems rather ridiculous to me, I almost thought it had to be a hoax or last month's April fools joke or someting. But it's for real, and happening tomorrow. Wow.

They should definitely shut down individual games that have little or no online activity, but to just axe the entire system that fast is just wrong IMO. I doubt this helps them sell Wii-U, if anything, it's another knock against them for not supporting their systems like the others.

It just strikes me that it's way too soon, especially to axe the entire system across the board. Why not just do it on a game by game basis and leave a few servers for Mariokart and some others? Is Nintendo really THAT cheap???

Obviously everyone knows consoles will get shut off, but I can't imagine PS3 or 360 having the plug pulled like that, not even in 2015 or 2016. Seems like those consoles will be going at least a few more years for sure (considering they are still getting new games with online play, and will be for at another least a year or so).

Never played online, so it doesn't impact me. I definitely get why people are pissed though.

It's happening to all games using the Gamespy servers.

If you are saying that Nintendo is cheap because they aren't going to support the servers of a dead company that also hosts the servers for a ton of other games for other systems that are also going offline this month, then yes Nintendo is 'cheap'. That would be a ridiculous expense. Nintendo isn't axing the entire system across the board; Gamespy is, by virtue of no longer existing.

However, Nintendo is preserving all Wii Shop Channel content (which runs from their servers, not Gamespy), so stuff you bought and paid for digitally will still be available.

This happens.... EA just cut the line on like 50 games.

DS is old, and the Wii has to dead by now.

The only Nintendo games I ever really played online frequently were the Mario Kart games since the DS version.

So seeing as how I have Mario Kart 7 and then 8 to look forward, as well as an actually good online for Smash 4, I'll be good.

Well, that sucks.

Nintendo should support it for longer than a year a half though. Microsoft kept Xbox Live up for the original Xbox for over four years after the 360 was released and I bet they keep it up for the Xbox 360 for even longer. Nintendo shutting it down after only a year and a half since the Wii U released just further sends the message that Nintendo doesn't care about online gaming.

Meh whatever, bound to happen. Can't really think of a wonderful online experince I like on Wii or DS beside Mario Kart anyway.

GameSpy servers, not Nintendo's

Blame Gamespy, not Nintendo.

Is it not Nintendo's fault for relying entirely on an external 3rd party to run 100% of their online gameplay infrastructure, then failing to have contingency plans should a service issue arise? Is this not directly related to Nintendo's lack of building out their own infrastructure? (i.e. their "cheapness").

It's not as if every single Gamespy game is going away, so you don't even have your facts straight. Some are being migrated elsewhere. Red Dead Redemption and GTA IV are supposedly not going to be effected, there are numerous games that will be migrated elsewhere without the customer really knowing. Yet Nintendo apparantly throws up their hands, and lets their ENTIRE SYSTEM go offline without a solution. I get that they aren't going to migrate every last game, and it's not up to them to find solutions for 3rd party games on Wii platform. But they should at least have done something for MarioKart, Smash, and whatever other key games people actually still played on Wii.

I don't have a dog in this fight, since I haven't turned a Wii on at all since like 2010 (let alone go online with it). I just think it's pretty weak of Nintendo, this is just another black mark against them IMO.

Its because Gamespy severs has been bought by someother company and all the Nintendo Wifi connection games were on gamespy severs Mortal Kombat 9 sever are getting shut down too because of the same reason

Wrong. Mortal Kombat 9 will live.

Blame Nintendo for relying 100% in Gamespy,and having no contingencies.

Can't say i'll miss it but I did enjoy popping in for the occasional Goldeneye 007 deathmatch.

It doesn't really affect me now but I did have an amazing time back in the day playing online in Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros Brawl for the Wii. Those were some good times...

Gamespy Hosted servers end today too.

R.I.P. Battlefront 2. :(

and Battlefront 2 will live on I see :D

oh but Nintendo's online games. :(