Wii Shop Channel shuts down forever today
This is your last day to use the Wii Shop Channel before it's gone for good.
Pour one out for the Wii Shop Channel, as today it will be shutting down for good.
It had a great run, but after over a decade of being operational, the Wii's venerable service that brought us one of the catchiest tunes of all time (and some of the coolest gaming experiences on the system) is shutting down, permanently.
Nintendo originally announced that the shop would be shutting down in 2017, confirming its official shutdown date for 2019. It certainly seemed as though we had forever to bask in our favorite WiiWare titles and Virtual Console titles, but those two short years went by in a flash, and now it's unfortunately time to say goodbye.
Previously on March 26, 2018, the ability to purchase or redeem points in the shop was removed, and any points on your account would remain valid until January 20, 2019. Today's closure means the you will no longer be able to access the channel, period. Anything you don't already have on your account will be removed from the Wii Shop Channel for good, period, and it's too painful to think about, really. There were some fantastic things on that service, and it's heartbreaking to think that they'll just be gone forever now.
Nintendo's support page confirms the closure will no longer let you redownload purchased WiiWare, Virtual Console titles, etc.:
"In the future, we will be closing all services related to the Wii Shop Channel, including redownloading purchased WiiWare, Virtual Console titles, and Wii Channel, as well as Wii System Transfer Tool, which transfers data from Wii to the Wii U system."
You still have some time left to download your old purchases, bask in the glory of a real-life Virtual Console, and listen to that sweet, sweet shop music a bit more before the service is taken offline today. Rest in peace, you beautiful part of Nintendo history.
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replyBrittany Vincent posted a new article, Wii Shop Channel shuts down forever today
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amazing, RIP
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boo :(
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Enjoy the metal rendition of the Wii Shop song: https://twitter.com/eurogamer/status/1090632754058928128?s=21
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There are ways to have all digital and still have ownership. Europe does much better in regards to protections there than we do, though there's definitely further room for improvement.
I have a few hundred dollars in the Wii shop, but mostly I'm annoyed because that's still the best official way to play Rondo of Blood over here.-
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GOG seems to be the only company that gives you ownership, since you can actually download the installers and patches, then back them up in as many locations as you like.
Everybody else is basically giving a big "fuck you" to game preservation
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And super easy to run downloaded WiiWare games through homebrew. Which is good because there were plenty of WiiWare games that I wanted to try out but will never have the chance to buy them.
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So it seems sometime in the past few months, Nintendo updated that page to include "redownloading" as something that would be ended today. Earlier last year they made it seem like you would be able to redownload your purchases until an undetermined "later date" after the 30th. So today is a sad day for sure.
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Redownloading has not ended yet.
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