News: Nintendo to Stop Wii and DS Online Play in May Page 1

Nintendo to Stop Wii and DS Online Play in May

27.02.2014

Nintendo to Stop Wii and DS Online Play in May on Nintendo gaming news, videos and discussion

Nintendo have confirmed that online play for Nintendo DS and Wii titles will come to an end this May.

Online play, matchmaking and leaderboards will stop working at the end of May, the company confirmed this week. Fancy an online match in Mario Kart Wii, or crave online battles in previous Pokémon titles? There's a matter of weeks to go before the services shut down, so be sure to get your fit before the servers come down.

Of course, the offline modes will remain fully playable, which "continues to offer a rich game-play experience", said Nintendo's announcement.

For a full list of affected Nintendo titles, click on the "Spoiler" tag below:

Show Spoiler

Which of the Nintendo Wii and DS titles will you miss playing online?

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Darkflame (guest) 27.02.2014#1

Disgusting.
No where on the box's did it say to buyers the online modes would be temporary. No where was it said it would be "for as long as we could be bothered".

Nintendos still a rich, healthy company. They can easily afford to keep a few servers running.

Of course, this also points to the stupidity of console online systems to start with - needing to go via a central server rather then just client to client connections. (obviously a server of some sort would to find people to start with, but after that you should be able to play straight IP to IP).

Also, 3DS Video service canceled. So better watch Shaun the Sheep now.
(weird really, I thought they said just a few months back they were making more videos for it).

Sonic_13 27.02.2014#2

Fun times, fun times.

But as with all things in life, it's time to move on.

My favorites were Mario Kart Wii, Clubhouse Games, Dr. Mario Online Rx, and Mario Kart DS. Haven't played any of them online recently though, particularly those last two since they've had sequels.

Darkflame (guest) said:
No where on the box's did it say to buyers the online modes would be temporary. No where was it said it would be "for as long as we could be bothered".

Nowhere did it say "online will be provided forever" (especially since the service is free).

We're just about three years into the life of the DS's successor and 15 months or so into Wii's successor. Honestly, I'm surprised (particularly with the DS), that we didn't see online services shut down sooner.

=-=-=

There may be other factors involved than just deciding to end online arbitrarily:
https://pay.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1z2yqa/nintendo_killing_off_online_play_for_ds_and_wii/cfqbe6h

Flynnie 27.02.2014#3

Are people still playing these games online? I can't even imagine that people are? Doubt anyone is missing out!

mudskip 28.02.2014#4

Interesting idea Darkflame.

bittorrent decentralizes data distribution
bitcoin decentralizes a system for transacting money

It would be cool if there was something similar to do the same thing for online gaming.
It is always sad when features stop working...

RudyC3 28.02.2014#5

To be fair, I can imagine the only games on Wii still being played online quit a lot are Mario Kart Wii... and possibly Monster Hunter Tri. Mario Kart 8 is coming to Wii U soon so it would be a good signal for people who hadn't yet seen any reason to move to the new system to finally do so... and Monster Hunter is on Wii U now, so that's not lost. Smash Bros Brawl was always a nightmare to play online, far too much lag, so for me that's not sorely missed.

IMHO, if these ressources are put to use and their next two big onlines games instead, Smash Bros U/3DS and Mario Kart 8 instead, and made right so that we do not have to experience any lag, then I won't complain. I don't care for old outdated services which were laggy in the first place to be maintained and if this move helps in making RELIABLE the newer ones, the ones that I actually CARE about playing, then I'm all for it.

Besides, I've never seen any company sustaining their online services indefinitely on their dead hardware. Sony isn't supporting online on their PS2 games as far as I know, nor MS on XBox. PS360 i'd argue are still very much alive, and still welcoming new titles on a very regular basis, so it's only normal that they wouldn't be dropped too soon, but DS and Wii are dead and buried already, and Nintendo needs to sell their new systems to the masses now, not the old ones. And the new ones could really use the freed resources.

Cubed3 Limited Staff :: Review and Feature Writer

Sonic_13 28.02.2014#6

RudyC3 said:
Smash Bros Brawl was always a nightmare to play online, far too much lag, so for me that's not sorely missed.

I never really had problems with Smash Bros. online (other than during the first couple days after launch when there were server issues). Beyond that first week I can probably count on just one hand the number of laggy matches I've had online, though I haven't played it online since Wii U came out.

Darkflame (guest) 01.03.2014#7

be temporary. No where was it said it would be "for as long as we could be bothered".

Nowhere did it say "online will be provided forever" (especially since the service is free).

That's not how buying stuff works.
Its upto the seller to tell you if something only works for X time.

Would you also just accept it if the game itself stopped working?

Oh, and don't buy into the mindset that online should cost. Its never costed anything on PC*, it shouldn't cost anything on consoles either.

*aside from mmo's - but you get new content regularly there.

Flynnie 02.03.2014#8

Darkflame (guest) said:
be temporary. No where was it said it would be "for as long as we could be bothered".
Nowhere did it say "online will be provided forever" (especially since the service is free).

Would you also just accept it if the game itself stopped working?

I don't care for playing games online myself so this particular issue doesnt bother me, however a similar issue which you mention has happened. Until recently I had an iPhone 3GS where i had many games like Angry Birds, Sonic 1,2 and a few others. However as newer iterations of the iPhone have come out playing these games have become increasingly buggy or nigh impossible.

Scarily we are now in a situation where games could be switched off altogether if a dev wanted it to be. Imagine a RARE style buy out where assets transfered over in such a way that all previously released games for Company X stopped working when Company Y purchased it.