Nintendo to Discontinue Online Play for Wii and DS

in games on 2014-02-28 02:11 (#3F0)

Nintendo has announced the discontinuation of their Wi-Fi Connection Service for the Wii, DS, and DSi systems. Over 400 titles are affected, including Mario Kart Wii.

Engadget reports:

Services that will keep working on the DS after May include the DSi Shop, DS Browser, and DSi Browser, while the Wii keeps Netflix, Hulu, Wii Shop Channel, Internet Channel, Pay and Play and YouTube.

Could the slow sales of the Wii U be motivating this move? Will casual gamers be put off by this and hurt the company's future sales?

Probably won't help Wii U (Score: 5, Insightful)

by mth@pipedot.org on 2014-02-28 10:07 (#81)

If it's a cost-cutting operation, it might be related to the poor Wii U sales. If they're doing it in the hope Wii owners will buy a Wii U, I doubt that will work. I have a Wii and I never played online with it, so some users won't even notice the difference. People who will miss online play have to buy a new system and new games, so there is nothing that binds them to Nintendo. And since Nintendo was the one who switched off the online component for a system that was sold less than half a year ago, I don't expect they'll get much loyalty from those users.