Goodbye, Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection!

I don't personally have these, but I hate when companies go bigger and better and shut down the older stuff. They can't just keep it for nostalgic purposes in the later future? It's so stupid to me.

pokefan648 said:

I think that either There will be enough ragers and angry Nintendo fans that they will have to keep the servers running, or someone else will operate the servers for at least another 2-4 years.

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I...rather doubt that. The number of fans that would actually rage about this isn't large in number, nor going to cause any significant drop in sales or whatnot that would drive them to go back to paying for servers that support last-gen hardware in the Wii and DS. And someone else operate? Who is going to pay for worldwide server services on behalf of Nintendo fans, really, ignoring all the issues with permission and so forth? A bit optimistic there.

I don't personally have these, but I hate when companies go bigger and better and shut down the older stuff. They can't just keep it for nostalgic purposes in the later future? It's so stupid to me.

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Nostalgic purposes doesn't really cut it as a reason when the number of people using such services are dwindling, and they still have to pay for these services on top of the separate system they have for the 3DS and Wii U (Nintendo Network).

Side note: someone elsewhere pointed out this bit from GameSpy, a group that supposedly had a hand with the WFC servers:

"Effective January 1st, 2013, GameSpy has ceased to make its software available for Licensing.

"If you're a major label publisher or even an established development studio, you know – the ones that have released titles and real offices with cool things like HR departments, Office managers, etc. and have an Agreement in good standing (you know, you pay your bills, etc) while you will no longer be able to add new titles, your existing supported titles will continue to function while under paid support.

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Sounds a bit like that they were slowly phasing out, and now Nintendo decided to end it themselves and focus on the current gen, along with the new titles coming out gradually that will rely a lot on a reliable server system (Mario Kart U, Smash Bros).

Besides - at least it was, and still currently is, a free service. Yes, it sucks it's being shut down now, but it was always something that was going to happen sooner or later.

The Pokémon Black and White era games were the only ones I ever used the WFC for anyways, and I stopped using it when they announced they were taking down the Pokémon Dream World. I am not surprised by this at all, frankly. While I'm a stickler for using older gaming stuff from time to time, the vast majority of DS games I own aren't compatible with my router's settings to begin with, so I use them mostly offline anyways.

As far as a business move, this isn't really that big of a deal... I know that a lot of people already own a 3DS and probably play its games WAY more than their DS titles. And, if memory serves, the big deal of the DS was that a lot of the games could be played with the touch screen, not that they could be played online. In fact, the whole concept of internet gaming is rather limited when it comes to Nintendo's games. I mean, Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, and a few other select series are about it (as previously stated in the OP).

AWsquared said:

Most likely cause they're trying to make the DS and Wii obsolete. They're pretty much done focusing on those system and are pushing people to move on to the 3DS and Wii U. The original DS is almost 10 years old. The Wii is 8 years old. The Wii was discontinued in Japan and Europe in October 2013, so this is clearly cause they're trying to move on. The current generation is their main focus now. There hasn't been a DS game released since last October.

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Last October was 4 months ago. It's really not that long. Black 2 and White 2 are just barely a year old and now they're getting their online services shut down; I'd actually argue that there'll still be a sizeable amount of people who will be affected by this for no sound reason in particular whatsoever.

This is actually really perplexing, IMO. I don't understand the argument that they're trying to make the hardware obsolete because this is definitely not the way to do it. Why would you try to phase out hardware by making the software not work? Especially seeing as the 3DS is backwards-compatible. And if numbers are dwindling, then that nullifies the cost argument as well and therefore there's no real impediment to keep at least some of the games running for a few more months.

I still think the timing's really off on this. I'm just thinking of the vast majority of kids and parents who probably can't distinguish between DS and 3DS software to begin with so this'll just end up confusing a lot of people when it comes to why half of their kids' games stopped 'working.'

This is bad news for me because I'm still trying to complete my Pokedex in Black 2 so I can get the Shiny Charm. I've got to work quickly to catch 'em all. . . and there's about 400 left to catch:V

DavidtheDeadPhilosopher said:

Agreed, now my game will never be 100% complete because I KNOW there is gear on that service that your not going to get anywhere else.

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Indeed. I'll never get to fight Estark. Ill be stuck with Baramos and Dragonlord's maps and not have the good ones.

Wait so on the Wii are they shutting down internet capabilities or just the online portions of games? In other words, are they just shutting down Mario Kart online or are they also shutting down the Internet Browser, YouTube app, and worst of all Netflix?

Magykx said:

Whaaat?? Why would they do that? I don't understand (too lazy to look up logical reason).

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Encouraging people to upgrade to 3DS and cut server hosting costs. What else is there.

In layman's terms, more $$$.

DS games had really bad wifi for me compared to 3DS Wii was not that bad for me however.

In all honesty this should be expected. I personally think it's too soon, but video game console producers cannot keep support for every single release until the end of time. The PS4 and XBOX One are out now and while PS3 and XBOX 360 still have online functionality and online gameplay is still supported, do you think that will be the case 50 years from now? Once the 'PS5 and XBOX Two' come out the same thing will eventually happen the current systems. It's a shame to see it happen especially if you still use the systems like the Wii being discussed, but it's just how it rolls.

Woow, this is kinda sad ;; All of my trading is done on Gen 4 Pokemon games since I haven't transferred anything over to XY yet.

This is also really unfortunate since it means we won't be able to download time trial ghosts on Mario Kart Wii which means my brother is going to make me unlock Dry Browser before then, oh joy ;~;

Er, last post from this was a year ago. xD

Please try and not bump old threads, mmkay!

/locks/