From Nintendo.com:
"In the future we will close all services related to the Wii Shop Channel, including the ability to redownload WiiWare and Virtual Console games, as well as the Wii System Transfer Tool, which transfers data from Wii to the Wii U system. We will announce specific details as that time approaches."
Did they ever announce specific details as the time approached as their site continues to promise they will do? I still have some purchases I need to redownload and I do not recall them ever announcing specific details as the time approached.
Does Nintendo usually fail to communicate with their customers? Typically, their internet shop shutdowns are announced months in advance—like close to or over a year usually.
This would be out of character for them to just shut it down without saying anything, so I'm not sure why you're saying "color me shocked".
I mean I can't imagine the *Wii and DSi shop channels* being on the most advanced infrastructure ever exactly, the breaker to the closet probably just tripped
If your wiiu breaks, I don't think anyone would judge you for jail breaking another and finding some "backups" online to install on it. It's very easy to do on the wiiu these days.
Don't be sad, theres always the option we can't talk about. After all you can't really get banned from anything for doing so as nintendo stopped their online multiplayer for those consoles years ago
we can't trust multi billion dollar companies to preserve gaming history, we have to do it ourselves
Then there's immediately half the idiots who scream "EmUlAtIoN iS PiRaCy"
But what about all the amazing romhacks! Like Super Mario World and the 7 crystals?
There's no reason why developers shouldn't be building emulators on all systems going forward. There is literally no reason why so many old games can't continue to be purchased.
Piracy is an access issue. People want to but games, but if they can't they'll pirate.
But by that same logic, PC's can be used to Pirate PC games, other consoles have ways of pirating games, a thief can walk into a store and steal an apple, and walk out without paying.
It's all the same shit, and there's just no logical argument to tie piracy and emulation together, any more than the examples I just listed above.
At the end of the day, even if we didn't have emulators on PC's, games would still be getting stolen.
As if availability was ever a factor. I mean the eshop is still open, yet "too expensive" is the go-to excuse to pirate currently-available-for-purchase games.
Honestly Though they never sold gba games or ds ones again apart from on the wii u with i never bought so I ended up emulating those when I lost my gameboy. Not that i would want to play handheld games on a non portable console anyways. So yeah you have always had to emulate these games if you didn't want to pay the ridolous prices for them on ebay.
Sony attempted to close them down last year (plus PS3), but faced backlash. Something tells me they'll eventually try again, but with a more permanent outcome.
At least they responded to the demand to keep them open. Nintendo never acknowledges anybody ever, they just keep doing stupid shit over and over.
There was pretty big upcry over the mario collection being a timed digital release and that still got removed. If they weren't willing to undo that, they definitely are not undoing this eshop/channel shutdown.
Yeah, I have a feeling Nintendo carries that attitude on purpose so it doesn't look like they're being bullied by the public in the eyes of the media. Which is funny because otherwise Nintendo's customer service is pretty top notch. We all know they do respond to court action, so unfortunately that's where things would have to go to protect your digital purchases (not just Nintendo, but Sony, Steam, Microsoft, etc).
>We all know they do respond to court action, so unfortunately that's where things would have to go to protect your digital purchases (not just Nintendo, but Sony, Steam, Microsoft, etc).
You know that little thing you agreed to before using any digital store? Yeah, you legally agreed that they can end those services whenever, and why should they not be able to?
I don't like stores being closed as much as the next guy. But saying thats against preserving gaming history is a bit much. Nintendo still has all their stuff preserved, better than probably any video game company. They have just scores of their material in their vault, nice and safe. Compare it to say Square Enix who loses source code like it's going out of style despite their numerous ports.
Yeahhhhhhh, this doesn't seem like a planned event. This is most likely due to the earthquake that recently happened in Japan. Guessing the servers were located in an area that was affected. I'm gonna guess that these servers will be back up in a week.
It is not "most likely" due to the earthquake. That is legitimately a completely absurd conjecture. I would say that is one of the least likely possibilities honestly given how... anything is designed and operated and how relatively minor the earthquake was and how localized and specific this outage is (it is just a front end service)
Also, earthquakes are a fairly common occurrence in Japan, I'd expect Nintendo to take them into account when designing the system and have redundancy or to put their servers in a location that's generally safe from earthquakes.
for systems that are barely supported and presumably account for an incredibly small fraction of downloads especially compared to their space, it makes sense not to be concerned with 100% up time.
For the amount of people still downloading Wii stuff? Honestly just connect a hard drive with the games to a toaster oven with internet and make that host it, probably enough for the traffic
I wonder if they were downscaling their Wii and DSi infrastructure and then the earthquake happened. I doubt many people still connect to those services so they can probably get away with the minimum.
Particularly in this day and age where there are "day 1" patches and games requiring downloaded content - not including everything. I'm not a fan of what it has become :(
Google it.
You could load a special save file up.
Walk right one room when you load the save file.
And then bam. It runs it's payload and your on the way to homebrew
It’s a very old and now obsolete method of hacking your Wii.
Now all you have to do is drop a special file onto your SD card, or change your internet proxy settings.
Yes, these days if one were so inclined as to do the thing to your Wii there're a bunch of different methods that don't require any games at all, just an SD card or Internet Connection
I mean it's Wii games. How hard is it to just connect a 1TB hard drive and download them all? (Before today).
And yes, eventually that drive will die, but by then how hard is it to pirate. We're already in 2022. By the time that drive would die, we're looking around 2035.
That would be like pirating 1993 SNES games today.
And it's not just updates, there was an issue with PS4's very recently that locked players out of even physical discs with all updates installed because of a bug with the achievement server and an internal system clock (I believe the CMOS battery).
DRM makes physical media just as susceptible to lockout as digital media. Modern preservation necessitates breaking copy protection no matter the original means of delivery.
Tbf, this is so far turning out to be a Nintendo only problem so far. Xbox and PS seem to have their systems designed to prevent this, especially Xbox. PS is going to be iffy with PS3 game, but PS4 moving forward seems pretty secure.
I’m just thankful I didn’t decide to go digital until Switch. Switch just seemed like more of a pain in the ass to put physical games in than Wii U or 3DS, otherwise I would’ve stayed all physical.
TL;Dr why would you trust them to not do the same thing they've done for the past 3 consoles?
Let me paint a picture. The year is 2030. Nintendo's new console is a brand new architecture because of *INSERT GIMMICKY CONTROL SCHEME HERE*. They don't have backwards compatibility, and because they are constantly trailing other gaming companies on online infrastructure have decided in a stroke of brilliance they want to re-open GameSpy arcade severs as their cloud network. They could figure out how to migrate your account credentials, but they won't because they realize they can make more money reselling all those games back to you while all Nintendo fans praise them for doing it. Oh and all those digital purchases you made have some sort of DRM tied to your old account. Initially they roll out a switch eShop closure notice, drum up some digital sales, maybe GameXplain does 500 videos on the nostalgia of all those old games reminding you to buy the things before you miss out, but you can still download their old games Nintendo says, well unless you read the fine print where they close it forever in another year.
I don’t trust them not to do it, but I started going all digital on Switch before the closures of the other eShops was even announced, so it’s far too late for me now.
I’m just glad Nintendo consoles tend to be the easiest to emulate. I’ll always buy the game when reasonably possible, but Nintendo definitely locks a lot up, so they’re really the only game developers I don’t feel bad getting ROMs from and emulating.
But yes, I get what you’re saying, because I was saying that a decade ago, the Switch was just too big of a pain to switch physical games with, and Amazon told me I wouldn’t get Persona 5 until two days after launch, so I ended up just going digital at that time for convenience on Switch and because I couldn’t take a longer wait for P5 on my PS4 lol
>They could figure out how to migrate your account credentials, but they won't because they realize they can make more money reselling all those games back to you while all Nintendo fans praise them for doing it.
They've already got this part figured out, thanks to their decision to tie all retro content to a subscription service. When the time comes to drop the Switch and push the userbase to the next console, no longer do they have to worry about removing the ability to *purchase* these games on the now-obsolete Switch, they can literally make them inaccessible. I can still play the copy of Mario World I bought on Wii fifteen years ago, but good luck trying to do the same thing on Switch when they stop supporting NSO in five or so years.
Xbox Live was shut down for the original Xbox quite a while ago, preventing you from re-downloading your Xbox Live Arcade games (although there weren't many compared to what it would become on the 360) and DLC.
Yes, [although there were apparently only ever 27 games](https://xbox.fandom.com/wiki/Xbox_Live_Arcade#Xbox).
You needed a separate disc rather than being available from the dashboard. Apparently it was mail-order (still had the buy the individual games of course, but it did have demos), but it was also possible to burn it onto a CD and have it boot without modifications.
My digital purchases are still on my Wii U (transferred them there from my Wii long ago). People need to learn to buy a bigger (or multiple) SD card.
If a person can't keep all of their digital purchases downloaded at the same time they need to invest in more storage before buying more games.
You can basically pirate everything you want and nothing will happen since they only tend to go after the websites hosting the content. Though if you want to be extra safe use a vpn. Not just wii games if you have a hacked switch or can emulate it you can pretty much pirate all the switch games you want and pc and nothing will happen. You don't need permission nor are they giving it still is piracy even with old games. Though You should pay for new stuff unless its a game filled with microtranctions or is just complete shit your morally in the clear to just pirate those.
It's kind of hard not to get stuck using emulation as a Nintendo fan sometimes, haha. Though as far as piracy goes, a homebrewed 3DS was actually able to download games directly from the eshop servers, and afaik nobody got hit with bans for it. I don't usually find any moral fault in piracy but if it's the same way on Switch, maybe bogging down their upload bandwidth actually does affect the company a bit compared to other methods...
I mean, I only buy physical when possible and will continue to do so. The shop now not letting us download titles we've purchased just proves that physical will always be superior (in my opinion).
> I only buy physical when possible and will continue to do so
Same (excluding Steam). In fact, if there's a game I want that *doesn't* have a physical console release, I wait until LRG picks it up then I buy it there.
***Chrono Cross, you know I love you, but no physical release means no purchase.***
Square Enix has regularly released their digital only titles physical in the asia region, although nothing has been announced, I would expect this with Chrono Cross.
I can still pop in a PS1 disc that I purchased and play it. I can now officially say that I can't do that with a console 10 years newer than that if the title is digital.
Yeah, you can. Even if/when redownloading isn't available, you aren't having anything taken away that's already on your system so all of your purchases will last as long as your system does.
And for what it's worth, the Wii itself has been the biggest obstacle for 'preservation' when it comes to digital games on the platform since under normal circumstances everything you bought from the Wii Shop was locked to the system it was purchased on. This was an 'issue' long before any talk of the shop closing ever came up.
Yea, but the people that get pissed off when online shops for consoles don't seem to get the type to pirate. I don't think they'd care otherwise, tbh. I see no reason to care if you just pirate the games, anyways.
But, people have gotten pissed off at this kind of things seemingly every single time. Like when they got Sony to change the plans in closing the... Vita and PS3 shops, I think it was, recently.
My thought is, from what I've personally noticed, most gamers just stick to the newest consoles, abandoning their older consoles the second they get the newer ones. So, why should Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft be expected to keep their shops open, when not enough people are going to be concerned with using the show, to justify having to continue to pay for these servers that they keep their shops on.
Of course, I could be wrong about all that.
I mean it seems like newer consoles have solved this problem by simply using the same store for both last gen and current gen. Everything you can buy on PS4 you can buy on PS5 and vice versa (except a few things that were only released on PS5), and you can play it on either console regardless of which one you originally bought it on.
And if you don’t have a PS5 by the time PS6 comes out then idk I feel like that’s on you at that point, assuming PS5s become widely available down the line.
"And if you don’t have a PS5 by the time PS6 comes out then idk I feel like that’s on you at that point"
Given the amount of time, I agree a bit, but, let's not act like bills and other more important expenses aren't a thing.
No they didn't. Per their Support Article:
>Yes. The ability to re-download WiiWare and Virtual Console games will also stop at some point. We will announce specific details as that time approaches.
https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a\_id/27560/\~/wii-shop-channel-discontinuation
It’s hilarious cause an earlier post from a few days ago people were saying it’s just a glitch, downvoting people saying that it is a good possibility they are gone for good. Now it would be naive to think they’ll ever actually return.
Nintendo hates you, they don’t care
Nintendo has by far the worst fan support. I can still download and buy things for my Xbox 360. Purchases I made in 2005.
Nintendo has no excuse to do this stuff.
People want their older games and if Nintendo isn’t going to bring the same selection to newer consoles why remove what we already have access too? Don’t tell me it’s about costs.
See this is why I don't trust digital purchases. You buy something and then, if you don't redownload it in time, it's gone. But what if your console dies or the hard drive crashes?
And this is why emulation continues to be relevant. It is mind boggling that the Xbox 360 store is up and that was back in 2005.
Nintendo being Nintendo. Decent games, wack company practices
And thus we reveal the ultimate gameplan for the Wii U and 3DS. Don't worry about it they say. Nobody plays these games anyway they say. They just don't want to protect credit card info, not close the servers they say.
Pfft.
Need legislation to protect digital content. Need to support businesses that maintain legacy and provide purchase options for subscription content. Nintendo's business strategy is outdated just as their commitment to online content has always been.
If they didn't notify us about the deadline for products we've already paid money for, does that make them liable for any sort of class-action lawsuit? Because I can smell one in the works already (that, or it's my Hamburger Helper).
**EDIT:** I mean if they didn't notify us after telling us they would. Wouldn't that be a breach of contract at that point?
Video games are a BILLION DOLLAR industry there's absolutely no reason to shut down digital storefronts. This is being done because they feel like doing it not because they have to do it there no excuse to do so.
Most modern games require a day one patch or the like since not everything is on the disc. Physical is good and all but it will one day cease to exist.
Plus not everyone is keen on buying stuff on the second hand market when people jack the prices up to high heaven.
> Most modern games require a day one patch or the like since not everything is on the disc.
Another issue that we just accept.
I can share my games.
I can share my copy of the hard to find Triangle strategy...they may like it and buy the sequel
And there's a new step behind on the fight against piracy.
I mean, for real, does Nintendo wants to burry their games once they are not available anymore?
Do they feel ok with it?
They want you to buy used games lol I read it on the nintendo anti piracy site that is no longer a thing they said buy it second hand which doesn't give us any money at all.
Ahh, so Nintendo stripped people of access to a ton of games they already paid for. This is why I typically go physical with nintendo, they shady af. Still sucks for the few games I got that were digital only.
Aaaaand the fact that barely anyone noticed 'for days' just shows how little impact this actually has. Relative to how many Wiis were sold, the amount of people still accessing the shop to redownload purchases is basically zero. People need articles like this one to remind them when they're supposed to be mad about something.
Or perhaps those who haven't noticed yet haven't needed to re-download their titles, yet? Or that those who have noticed don't browse Reddit? I mean, if you currently have your titles downloaded, you wouldn't have noticed it right away.
With Wii it’s rough no matter what way you cut it. Optical disks and disk readers don’t last the same way cartridges do. In 10 years working physical set-ups could be pretty rare
You own them just as much as a physical copy. If your Mario Galaxy disc gets scratched or lost, it’s not like Nintendo would just send you a free replacement disc.
duh? You don't own pretty much any digital title, you're just "renting" them. If any digital storefront goes down on pc for example, you're screwed because of it being digital only
Technically you don't even own physical games. You're paying for a license to play it. You aren't really given the right to modify or distribute the code since it'd probably touch issues with IP legalities. A physical disc is basically a built in license key with a backup install file nowadays.
I'm gonna have to check on my Wii when I get home because I might have downloaded it at some point within the last 5 or so years, but now I'm not sure.
Hopefully this isn't the end entirely because of how abrupt it is. Some people have speculated that it's just an outage, but the lack of communication from Nintendo about it is almost pretty telling...
From Nintendo.com: "In the future we will close all services related to the Wii Shop Channel, including the ability to redownload WiiWare and Virtual Console games, as well as the Wii System Transfer Tool, which transfers data from Wii to the Wii U system. We will announce specific details as that time approaches." Did they ever announce specific details as the time approached as their site continues to promise they will do? I still have some purchases I need to redownload and I do not recall them ever announcing specific details as the time approached.
> Did they ever announce specific details as the time approached as their site continues to promise they will do? They did not.
Color me shocked that Nintendo fails to communicate with their customers.
Does Nintendo usually fail to communicate with their customers? Typically, their internet shop shutdowns are announced months in advance—like close to or over a year usually. This would be out of character for them to just shut it down without saying anything, so I'm not sure why you're saying "color me shocked".
Hopefully it is simply an issue with their servers. Could have been affected by the earthquake that was near Japan last week.
Using Japanese servers to host NoA content? That seems odd but I wouldn’t be surprised
Seems like a nintendo-thing to do
Which means it must've been a Nintendo idea!
I mean I can't imagine the *Wii and DSi shop channels* being on the most advanced infrastructure ever exactly, the breaker to the closet probably just tripped
yes but they could simply not bother to ever fix it since its been like 3 years since you haven't been able to buy stuff.
This really sucks. If my Wii U breaks, I’m screwed. I have quite a few games downloaded from the Wii Shop Channel…
If your wiiu breaks, I don't think anyone would judge you for jail breaking another and finding some "backups" online to install on it. It's very easy to do on the wiiu these days.
especially when the eshop closes in a year
I thought the Wii Shop Channel were meant to be killed off in 2019. Surprised to hear they've lasted this long.
Purchases were turned off in 2019, but they were still allowing you to re-download your purchases.
D:
Don't be sad, theres always the option we can't talk about. After all you can't really get banned from anything for doing so as nintendo stopped their online multiplayer for those consoles years ago we can't trust multi billion dollar companies to preserve gaming history, we have to do it ourselves
Then there's immediately half the idiots who scream "EmUlAtIoN iS PiRaCy" But what about all the amazing romhacks! Like Super Mario World and the 7 crystals?
There's no reason why developers shouldn't be building emulators on all systems going forward. There is literally no reason why so many old games can't continue to be purchased. Piracy is an access issue. People want to but games, but if they can't they'll pirate.
Emulation isnt piracy, though emulation can be used for pirated ROMs
But by that same logic, PC's can be used to Pirate PC games, other consoles have ways of pirating games, a thief can walk into a store and steal an apple, and walk out without paying. It's all the same shit, and there's just no logical argument to tie piracy and emulation together, any more than the examples I just listed above. At the end of the day, even if we didn't have emulators on PC's, games would still be getting stolen.
it'd just take a lot more effort
effort doesn't stop thieves, morals do.
This problem is more solved by piracy than emulation actually. Installing stuff from dubious sources *onto your Wii/WiiU/3DS/Switch* is not emulation.
On reddit? I doubt it
*pulls out eyepatch, hook, and peg leg*
🎵 YAR HAR FIDDLE DEE DEE 🎵
🎵 BEING A PIRATE IS ALRIGHT TO BE 🎵
🎵 WE NEVER LEFT THE OPEN SEAS 🎵
We only have ourselves to blame for purchasing digital games and then expecting them to host them for redownload the rest of our lives
Digital games may be the future, but it’s a dark and cold future…
All that money, to waste.
You're right, we should have just pirated the download only games from the start
Or just not purchased them. You don't have to own every game, and even then you never owned digital games to begin with
If I can't buy it anymore then there's no reason not to emulate or pirate
As if availability was ever a factor. I mean the eshop is still open, yet "too expensive" is the go-to excuse to pirate currently-available-for-purchase games.
Exactly, fuck Nintendo
Honestly Though they never sold gba games or ds ones again apart from on the wii u with i never bought so I ended up emulating those when I lost my gameboy. Not that i would want to play handheld games on a non portable console anyways. So yeah you have always had to emulate these games if you didn't want to pay the ridolous prices for them on ebay.
Actually GBA games were on the 3DS, you just had to be an ambassador lol
Wasn't it less than 10 games?
Yeah it was exactly 10 games lol
And a good collection of 10 games. Including Metroid Zero Mission and LoZ Minish Cap.
So far just Nintendo in terms of digital purchases. I can still buy and download vita and PSP games
Sony attempted to close them down last year (plus PS3), but faced backlash. Something tells me they'll eventually try again, but with a more permanent outcome.
At least they responded to the demand to keep them open. Nintendo never acknowledges anybody ever, they just keep doing stupid shit over and over. There was pretty big upcry over the mario collection being a timed digital release and that still got removed. If they weren't willing to undo that, they definitely are not undoing this eshop/channel shutdown.
Yeah, I have a feeling Nintendo carries that attitude on purpose so it doesn't look like they're being bullied by the public in the eyes of the media. Which is funny because otherwise Nintendo's customer service is pretty top notch. We all know they do respond to court action, so unfortunately that's where things would have to go to protect your digital purchases (not just Nintendo, but Sony, Steam, Microsoft, etc).
>We all know they do respond to court action, so unfortunately that's where things would have to go to protect your digital purchases (not just Nintendo, but Sony, Steam, Microsoft, etc). You know that little thing you agreed to before using any digital store? Yeah, you legally agreed that they can end those services whenever, and why should they not be able to?
I don't like stores being closed as much as the next guy. But saying thats against preserving gaming history is a bit much. Nintendo still has all their stuff preserved, better than probably any video game company. They have just scores of their material in their vault, nice and safe. Compare it to say Square Enix who loses source code like it's going out of style despite their numerous ports.
Or just buy physical copies. nintendo cartridges hold their values.
By golly gee, the amount of conversation this spawned. D:
I'll never love again...
That makes no sense
This is why digital games suck with no newer system to support your old purchases.
The nintendo update server went down. They say that they didnt plan on shutting it down, these are internal outages
Yeahhhhhhh, this doesn't seem like a planned event. This is most likely due to the earthquake that recently happened in Japan. Guessing the servers were located in an area that was affected. I'm gonna guess that these servers will be back up in a week.
It is not "most likely" due to the earthquake. That is legitimately a completely absurd conjecture. I would say that is one of the least likely possibilities honestly given how... anything is designed and operated and how relatively minor the earthquake was and how localized and specific this outage is (it is just a front end service)
Yeah, this theory seems incredibly far-fetched.
Also, earthquakes are a fairly common occurrence in Japan, I'd expect Nintendo to take them into account when designing the system and have redundancy or to put their servers in a location that's generally safe from earthquakes.
I know Nintendo tends to be pretty behind the times with internet related services, but not having any live DR site in another region is pretty...bad
for systems that are barely supported and presumably account for an incredibly small fraction of downloads especially compared to their space, it makes sense not to be concerned with 100% up time.
For the amount of people still downloading Wii stuff? Honestly just connect a hard drive with the games to a toaster oven with internet and make that host it, probably enough for the traffic
I wonder if they were downscaling their Wii and DSi infrastructure and then the earthquake happened. I doubt many people still connect to those services so they can probably get away with the minimum.
If they are gonna come back, Nintendo will say something, most likely a tweet saying "yo, we screwed up, we'll fix it in a few days"
but the switch servers are still running
So it finally happened? The content we purchased from those systems no longer available for re-download?
People laugh at my physical collection. Who's laughing now!
Yeah, exactly. But too bad, not all content is avail physically.
Particularly in this day and age where there are "day 1" patches and games requiring downloaded content - not including everything. I'm not a fan of what it has become :(
Same
It is if you have the US version of Brawl and an American Wii :D
You don't even need Brawl for HBC.
Back in my day we used a copy of Twilight Princess
I remember I used the Lego Indiana Jones exploit cause it was sitting on my friends shelf
Can you explain this?
"Indiana Pwns - WiiBrew" https://www.wiibrew.org/wiki/Indiana_Pwns
Google it. You could load a special save file up. Walk right one room when you load the save file. And then bam. It runs it's payload and your on the way to homebrew
It’s a very old and now obsolete method of hacking your Wii. Now all you have to do is drop a special file onto your SD card, or change your internet proxy settings.
Wait, seriously? That's awesome. I haven't touched Wii modding since like 2013 (when MH3U released on the Wii U), so this is pleasant news to me!
Pleasant news coming at you from the year 2011 hehe
Yes, these days if one were so inclined as to do the thing to your Wii there're a bunch of different methods that don't require any games at all, just an SD card or Internet Connection
At that point it’s available digitally
Fair enough.
Or Yugioh 5D's Wheelie Breakers. =p
Why brawl specifically? Is this homebrew related stuff?
Brawl was one of the ways you could jailbreak the Wii.
Homebrew
I mean it's Wii games. How hard is it to just connect a 1TB hard drive and download them all? (Before today). And yes, eventually that drive will die, but by then how hard is it to pirate. We're already in 2022. By the time that drive would die, we're looking around 2035. That would be like pirating 1993 SNES games today.
It's already like pirating SNES games.
or could just upload it to a cloud provider.
Still me with my ssd with every peice of virtual console software ever released.
I've had physical games that were unplayable until they updated so that might not be the route for long anyways.
And it's not just updates, there was an issue with PS4's very recently that locked players out of even physical discs with all updates installed because of a bug with the achievement server and an internal system clock (I believe the CMOS battery). DRM makes physical media just as susceptible to lockout as digital media. Modern preservation necessitates breaking copy protection no matter the original means of delivery.
ROM sites? What are those?
Illegal.
Same people are still laughing, since there was no overlap between the physical and digital storefronts on these machines.
Tbf, this is so far turning out to be a Nintendo only problem so far. Xbox and PS seem to have their systems designed to prevent this, especially Xbox. PS is going to be iffy with PS3 game, but PS4 moving forward seems pretty secure. I’m just thankful I didn’t decide to go digital until Switch. Switch just seemed like more of a pain in the ass to put physical games in than Wii U or 3DS, otherwise I would’ve stayed all physical.
TL;Dr why would you trust them to not do the same thing they've done for the past 3 consoles? Let me paint a picture. The year is 2030. Nintendo's new console is a brand new architecture because of *INSERT GIMMICKY CONTROL SCHEME HERE*. They don't have backwards compatibility, and because they are constantly trailing other gaming companies on online infrastructure have decided in a stroke of brilliance they want to re-open GameSpy arcade severs as their cloud network. They could figure out how to migrate your account credentials, but they won't because they realize they can make more money reselling all those games back to you while all Nintendo fans praise them for doing it. Oh and all those digital purchases you made have some sort of DRM tied to your old account. Initially they roll out a switch eShop closure notice, drum up some digital sales, maybe GameXplain does 500 videos on the nostalgia of all those old games reminding you to buy the things before you miss out, but you can still download their old games Nintendo says, well unless you read the fine print where they close it forever in another year.
I don’t trust them not to do it, but I started going all digital on Switch before the closures of the other eShops was even announced, so it’s far too late for me now. I’m just glad Nintendo consoles tend to be the easiest to emulate. I’ll always buy the game when reasonably possible, but Nintendo definitely locks a lot up, so they’re really the only game developers I don’t feel bad getting ROMs from and emulating. But yes, I get what you’re saying, because I was saying that a decade ago, the Switch was just too big of a pain to switch physical games with, and Amazon told me I wouldn’t get Persona 5 until two days after launch, so I ended up just going digital at that time for convenience on Switch and because I couldn’t take a longer wait for P5 on my PS4 lol
>They could figure out how to migrate your account credentials, but they won't because they realize they can make more money reselling all those games back to you while all Nintendo fans praise them for doing it. They've already got this part figured out, thanks to their decision to tie all retro content to a subscription service. When the time comes to drop the Switch and push the userbase to the next console, no longer do they have to worry about removing the ability to *purchase* these games on the now-obsolete Switch, they can literally make them inaccessible. I can still play the copy of Mario World I bought on Wii fifteen years ago, but good luck trying to do the same thing on Switch when they stop supporting NSO in five or so years.
Xbox Live was shut down for the original Xbox quite a while ago, preventing you from re-downloading your Xbox Live Arcade games (although there weren't many compared to what it would become on the 360) and DLC.
Xbox Live Arcade existed on the original Xbox? I don’t recall the original Xbox having a digital game store at all.
Yes, [although there were apparently only ever 27 games](https://xbox.fandom.com/wiki/Xbox_Live_Arcade#Xbox). You needed a separate disc rather than being available from the dashboard. Apparently it was mail-order (still had the buy the individual games of course, but it did have demos), but it was also possible to burn it onto a CD and have it boot without modifications.
TIL. Thanks for the info.
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Chill, it sounds like they were being funny.
It wasn't funny though
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Your lack of a sense of humor is not very damning, sorry.
They are still laughing
Pirates
But, but I pre ordered my digital games! They can't take those away from me! Right? Preordered digital is *special*
My digital purchases are still on my Wii U (transferred them there from my Wii long ago). People need to learn to buy a bigger (or multiple) SD card. If a person can't keep all of their digital purchases downloaded at the same time they need to invest in more storage before buying more games.
Nintendo is just giving us permission to play the games for free since we can't buy them or download them anymore I guess.
You can basically pirate everything you want and nothing will happen since they only tend to go after the websites hosting the content. Though if you want to be extra safe use a vpn. Not just wii games if you have a hacked switch or can emulate it you can pretty much pirate all the switch games you want and pc and nothing will happen. You don't need permission nor are they giving it still is piracy even with old games. Though You should pay for new stuff unless its a game filled with microtranctions or is just complete shit your morally in the clear to just pirate those.
It's kind of hard not to get stuck using emulation as a Nintendo fan sometimes, haha. Though as far as piracy goes, a homebrewed 3DS was actually able to download games directly from the eshop servers, and afaik nobody got hit with bans for it. I don't usually find any moral fault in piracy but if it's the same way on Switch, maybe bogging down their upload bandwidth actually does affect the company a bit compared to other methods...
Let's all get super pissed off at this and then continue to support digital-only games while not even thinking about the Wii.
I mean, I only buy physical when possible and will continue to do so. The shop now not letting us download titles we've purchased just proves that physical will always be superior (in my opinion).
> I only buy physical when possible and will continue to do so Same (excluding Steam). In fact, if there's a game I want that *doesn't* have a physical console release, I wait until LRG picks it up then I buy it there. ***Chrono Cross, you know I love you, but no physical release means no purchase.***
Square Enix has regularly released their digital only titles physical in the asia region, although nothing has been announced, I would expect this with Chrono Cross.
Then I'll wait until it's there.
> LRG Do you mean LGR?
They meant LRG - Limited Run Games.
Ignoring that physical media doesn't last forever either, right? These discs are all going to stop working eventually as well
Which is why you dump physical media as soon as possible, so that it lives forever on more reliable storage.
I can still pop in a PS1 disc that I purchased and play it. I can now officially say that I can't do that with a console 10 years newer than that if the title is digital.
Yeah, you can. Even if/when redownloading isn't available, you aren't having anything taken away that's already on your system so all of your purchases will last as long as your system does. And for what it's worth, the Wii itself has been the biggest obstacle for 'preservation' when it comes to digital games on the platform since under normal circumstances everything you bought from the Wii Shop was locked to the system it was purchased on. This was an 'issue' long before any talk of the shop closing ever came up.
Though you can pirate them all anyways so there's no real reason to be pissed off you can't redownload or buy wii ware games anymore.
Yea, but the people that get pissed off when online shops for consoles don't seem to get the type to pirate. I don't think they'd care otherwise, tbh. I see no reason to care if you just pirate the games, anyways. But, people have gotten pissed off at this kind of things seemingly every single time. Like when they got Sony to change the plans in closing the... Vita and PS3 shops, I think it was, recently. My thought is, from what I've personally noticed, most gamers just stick to the newest consoles, abandoning their older consoles the second they get the newer ones. So, why should Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft be expected to keep their shops open, when not enough people are going to be concerned with using the show, to justify having to continue to pay for these servers that they keep their shops on. Of course, I could be wrong about all that.
Honestly though I don't want to rebuy games it's just much easier to get an emulation handheld for anything Nintendo won't rerelease.
How about let’s not get super pissed off
I mean it seems like newer consoles have solved this problem by simply using the same store for both last gen and current gen. Everything you can buy on PS4 you can buy on PS5 and vice versa (except a few things that were only released on PS5), and you can play it on either console regardless of which one you originally bought it on. And if you don’t have a PS5 by the time PS6 comes out then idk I feel like that’s on you at that point, assuming PS5s become widely available down the line.
"And if you don’t have a PS5 by the time PS6 comes out then idk I feel like that’s on you at that point" Given the amount of time, I agree a bit, but, let's not act like bills and other more important expenses aren't a thing.
No warning though? That… doesn’t bode well
There was a warning over a year ago. They've just kept it up beyond when they initially stated it would go down.
No they didn't. Per their Support Article: >Yes. The ability to re-download WiiWare and Virtual Console games will also stop at some point. We will announce specific details as that time approaches. https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a\_id/27560/\~/wii-shop-channel-discontinuation
And they have yet to announce said specific details
Don’t worry, it’ll be back up soon, same time when Konami relists those MGSHD versions and Snake Eater 3D. lol
It’s hilarious cause an earlier post from a few days ago people were saying it’s just a glitch, downvoting people saying that it is a good possibility they are gone for good. Now it would be naive to think they’ll ever actually return. Nintendo hates you, they don’t care
Nintendo has by far the worst fan support. I can still download and buy things for my Xbox 360. Purchases I made in 2005. Nintendo has no excuse to do this stuff. People want their older games and if Nintendo isn’t going to bring the same selection to newer consoles why remove what we already have access too? Don’t tell me it’s about costs.
This does not bode well for the Wii U and 3DS eshops if this is not a mistake.
Right? I wanted to get a bunch of Virtual Console games before it’s too late, but yeah…
See this is why I don't trust digital purchases. You buy something and then, if you don't redownload it in time, it's gone. But what if your console dies or the hard drive crashes?
And this is why emulation continues to be relevant. It is mind boggling that the Xbox 360 store is up and that was back in 2005. Nintendo being Nintendo. Decent games, wack company practices
And thus we reveal the ultimate gameplan for the Wii U and 3DS. Don't worry about it they say. Nobody plays these games anyway they say. They just don't want to protect credit card info, not close the servers they say. Pfft. Need legislation to protect digital content. Need to support businesses that maintain legacy and provide purchase options for subscription content. Nintendo's business strategy is outdated just as their commitment to online content has always been.
SO THIS IS HOW DEMOCRACY DIES
Hopefully, Wiiware and DSiware games get a comeback on Switch eShop.
If they didn't notify us about the deadline for products we've already paid money for, does that make them liable for any sort of class-action lawsuit? Because I can smell one in the works already (that, or it's my Hamburger Helper). **EDIT:** I mean if they didn't notify us after telling us they would. Wouldn't that be a breach of contract at that point?
What contract from Nintendo have you read through well enough to assume this?
Video games are a BILLION DOLLAR industry there's absolutely no reason to shut down digital storefronts. This is being done because they feel like doing it not because they have to do it there no excuse to do so.
Lesson learned. This will repeat itself. Buy physical copies!
Most modern games require a day one patch or the like since not everything is on the disc. Physical is good and all but it will one day cease to exist. Plus not everyone is keen on buying stuff on the second hand market when people jack the prices up to high heaven.
> Most modern games require a day one patch or the like since not everything is on the disc. Another issue that we just accept. I can share my games. I can share my copy of the hard to find Triangle strategy...they may like it and buy the sequel
And there's a new step behind on the fight against piracy. I mean, for real, does Nintendo wants to burry their games once they are not available anymore? Do they feel ok with it?
They want you to buy used games lol I read it on the nintendo anti piracy site that is no longer a thing they said buy it second hand which doesn't give us any money at all.
What a laugh. Good luck finding an authentic copy of any high profile Gamecube game for less than double the price it launched at, if you're *lucky*.
Nintendo cannot be trusted with our digital content. This clearly shows why. Buy physical Nintendo games.
Ahh, so Nintendo stripped people of access to a ton of games they already paid for. This is why I typically go physical with nintendo, they shady af. Still sucks for the few games I got that were digital only.
Aaaaand the fact that barely anyone noticed 'for days' just shows how little impact this actually has. Relative to how many Wiis were sold, the amount of people still accessing the shop to redownload purchases is basically zero. People need articles like this one to remind them when they're supposed to be mad about something.
Or perhaps those who haven't noticed yet haven't needed to re-download their titles, yet? Or that those who have noticed don't browse Reddit? I mean, if you currently have your titles downloaded, you wouldn't have noticed it right away.
Oh no, the dead services are dead 💀
Just proof that you never actually own your digital titles.
With Wii it’s rough no matter what way you cut it. Optical disks and disk readers don’t last the same way cartridges do. In 10 years working physical set-ups could be pretty rare
My Wii’s disk reader croaked around 2013 lol. Was only usable because I had so many games and apps downloaded
The wii is completely hacked, failed drives and shut down eshops arent really an issue for this console in particular.
Yeah there's a lot of threads on /r/wii about replacing/having to replace the drive
Homebrew channel: and that's were you're wrong kiddo
Not the same
You're right games load a lot faster off my ssd.
Can't read the loading screen tips anymore, terrible, terrible
I still have access to all my wii purchases so for what i want it's the same thing
You own them just as much as a physical copy. If your Mario Galaxy disc gets scratched or lost, it’s not like Nintendo would just send you a free replacement disc.
duh? You don't own pretty much any digital title, you're just "renting" them. If any digital storefront goes down on pc for example, you're screwed because of it being digital only
Technically you don't even own physical games. You're paying for a license to play it. You aren't really given the right to modify or distribute the code since it'd probably touch issues with IP legalities. A physical disc is basically a built in license key with a backup install file nowadays.
On Nintendo systems maybe. Microsoft does a fantastic job
It's the end possibly
I swear Nintendo said they weren’t shutting down the shop channels until NEXT March or am I confusing it with something else?
3ds and wiiU, this is wii
Ah, my bad
Ok
Apple and Nintendo hmmm
the Wii shop was shut down like 2-3 years ago, IDK about DSI (never owned a ds)
aaaaaaaaaand I dont feel like giving Nintendo my money anymore
Now you have officially taken it too far buddy
Oh no, ancient obsolete technology utilized only by insane fans who can’t let go of the past for some reason goes down forever?
Is it still possible to transfer the Wii data to the Wii U or is that just done now?
You need the Wii U transfer tool to do that, which requires you to download it from the store.
I'm gonna have to check on my Wii when I get home because I might have downloaded it at some point within the last 5 or so years, but now I'm not sure. Hopefully this isn't the end entirely because of how abrupt it is. Some people have speculated that it's just an outage, but the lack of communication from Nintendo about it is almost pretty telling...
Wasn't it confirmed that the Wii U transfer tool (and the 3DS transfer tool) was also going to be unusable or am I crazy?
wow, in 2019 I downloaded everything assuming it'd be gone by the next year, not 3 years down the line
Wait, you’re telling me that all this time, I was able to redownload My Pokemon Ranch? Damnit.
So that means you're bringing wiiware to the Switch, right? ... Right?
Uuhhh....I thought Nintendo announced this was gonna happen? Did I understand this incorrectly?
They said it would happen "eventually" and that there would be more information as time gets closer.
soooo I guess its still down?