Nintendo is Killing Online Services for Wii, and DS.

[Milo]

As for the DS.. R.I.P Mario Kart DS, you had bloody awesome online play.. way better than that dreadful MKWii

 

At least I could play MK Wii without seeing crudely drawn breasts/penises on other player's decals >:C

 

granted i never experienced that but still

[Solkia]

To be honest, i'm surprised it even lasted this long.

 

The Wii and DS both use Security methods that haven't been in effect for years. I even remember bitching talking about it with Autosaver when we were both on the Sega Forums. I'm surprised people were actually able to connect to them.

 

Granted, most people probably run an ethernet-to-usb adapter. for Wii, but that's an even bigger mess than the wireless

 

Like someone said, someone will probably find a pass-through. In fact I'm fairly certain Dolphin already runs it's own.

[StaticMania]

Bummer.. I always fired up Brawl when I'm bored.

 

Yeah, the online was terrible, but you get what you pay for.

 

Well crap, looks like all my Wii will be used for after the deadline is NetFlix

 

As for the DS.. R.I.P Mario Kart DS, you had bloody awesome online play.. way better than that dreadful MKWii

 

 

 

Nintendo's version of DLC.. except instead of downloading extra content you paid to have extras already on the disc unlocked.. I think Samba De Amigo had it (red wi-fi logo on the box instead of the blue one)

Nintendo's Version...= A way of making DLC that game developers did before Nintendo even decided to do their own.

[-blank-]

Meh, this doesn't really affect me at all, as I never really used the online play for either the Wii or DS. Hell, I don't even use it for the current gen systems.

[PharoahBeast]

That is as dumb as Toshiba not letting my laptop connect to wifi because they released newer models. 

 

And I thought Nintendo was supposed to be the good guy when it came to customer satisfaction.

[Chaos Rush]

I'm disappointed with this because I use the online features of the Generation V Pokémon games frequently (even after X/Y), particularly random matchup and GTS negotiations (the latter is an amusing feature that didn't make it to X/Y). Since Black/White and Black 2/White 2 are DSi titles, they support WPA connection, so you can connect them online on your modern protected internet connection using your DSi or 3DS. Because of that, there's still lots of people playing online for 5th Generation Pokemon games (not 4th Generation because those only support WEP). I could easily go back to Gen V even after playing X/Y, it doesn't feel outdated at all. X/Y isn't such a huge leap from B2/W2 (on the contrary, B/W's battle system made Gen IV feel extremely outdated and I have not touched any of them since B/W first came out). It sucks because using random matchup on B2/W2 also gets you a free visitor in your Join Avenue, and there were times when I did online battles so much that I had 20+ visitors in my Join Avenue one day.

I'm sad to hear that this is all going to go, since there's still a huge amount of people playing the Generation V Pokémon games, not to mention PokéBank is encouraging X/Y newcomers to try out these past titles as well that they could play on the same 3DS that they played X/Y with, and the benefit of B/W and B2/W2 being DSi titles means they don't have to worry about switching their internet connection to WEP that plagues many DS (not DSi) titles.

Can you imagine the uproar that would occur if Sony announced that they're dropping online support for the PS3? Or if Microsoft did the same for Xbox 360? That's another reason, I mean, the Wii came out at the same time as the PS3. Granted, the Wii's online infrastructure is utter shit compared to the PS3 and 360, but still...

[PSI Wind]

Apparently Gamespy (Yeah, remember those guys) made the servers for the DS and Wii but they can no longer run the servers. So, Nintendo had no choice on this matter.

[JezMM]

That is as dumb as Toshiba not letting my laptop connect to wifi because they released newer models. 

 

And I thought Nintendo was supposed to be the good guy when it came to customer satisfaction.

 

Not really, because Toshiba do not create the internet service you connect to.  When you play a game online, you're connecting to Nintendo's servers, whether they host the game themselves or just connect you up directly to another player.

 

This will happen to every online service one day, people are just surprised because it happened so soon.

 

 

Kind of bizarre actually considering I'm sure I read only a few years back that Nintendo only recently stopped supporting repairs for NES systems.

[PharoahBeast]

Not really, because Toshiba do not create the internet service you connect to.  When you play a game online, you're connecting to Nintendo's servers, whether they host the game themselves or just connect you up directly to another player.

 

This will happen to every online service one day, people are just surprised because it happened so soon.

 

 

Kind of bizarre actually considering I'm sure I read only a few years back that Nintendo only recently stopped supporting repairs for NES systems.

My point being that I think its a bad setup. When I buy something I want it to function as long as I own it. 

 

I cannot stand a lot of the run around with technology these days. Maybe I am old fashioned but I just cannot understand why they do things like this. If I buy something it should work with all the features that it is designed to have. If I wanna send some pokemon to my friends in other states I should have that because I paid for the DS and the games. Why not set it up in some way where it uses the internet to send data just like an email? I think all this tech stuff is sometimes to blind us so we pay more.

[JezMM]

My point being that I think its a bad setup. When I buy something I want it to function as long as I own it. 

 

I cannot stand a lot of the run around with technology these days. Maybe I am old fashioned but I just cannot understand why they do things like this. If I buy something it should work with all the features that it is designed to have. If I wanna send some pokemon to my friends in other states I should have that because I paid for the DS and the games. Why not set it up in some way where it uses the internet to send data just like an email? I think all this tech stuff is sometimes to blind us so we pay more.

 

You can't just use another service "like e-mail".  Nintendo need to have full control over how data is sent between games like that, so they need to run what it connects to once online.  Maybe in the future the losses won't be quite so drastic - stuff like sending game data to a friend like with a Pokémon trade will be possible using third party means, though it'd still bring up issues.  I mean you can only TRADE Pokémon right, not send?  So what happens if one of your uploads fails?  What's to stop you both trying to download the same Pokémon at the same time?  Etc.  Still, Nintendo can now patch their games and are starting to offer save data backup features and all sorts, so maybe if the current system ever comes to an end (seems like it's been made to be more flexible so hopefully it'll stick around) they'll be more prepared and be able to retain more features by patching games to compensate for lack of online.

 

In the end though, sorry but technology must march on.  Nintendo can't be running servers for like 25 different consoles in 100 years time.  Also I just checked the Terms of Agreement in the Wi-fi manual that came with a copy of Pokémon Black 2, and as I expected, within the first paragraph, they state that they may modify or discontinue the service at any point, with or without cause or warning.

 

By playing on the service, you agreed that you understood this, so... afraid they haven't robbed you of anything.

 

 

 

 

I understand your frustration, but them's the breaks.  I am still shocked that it is happening only a year into the Nintendo Network's life though.

[PSI Wind]

Just be happy that it isn't like the Xbox where people paid for online (and still do with it's successors).

[Badnik Mechanic]

I'm not trying to be snarky with this one. only... 

 

When you say online gaming and mention Sony/Microsoft, you instantly think of tons of games. When I think Nintendo and online gamining, I only think of Smash Bros and Mario Kart.

 

Is there really anything else that has a big online community on the Wii?

[PSI Wind]

I'm not trying to be snarky with this one. only... 

 

When you say online gaming and mention Sony/Microsoft, you instantly think of tons of games. When I think Nintendo and online gamining, I only think of Smash Bros and Mario Kart.

 

Is there really anything else that has a big online community on the Wii?

Pokemon and Goldeneye were good too.

[JezMM]

Animal Crossing losing online is probably a big deal to that community.  I forget if they still let you visit friends' towns the old fashioned Gamecube way by using a memory card, but pretty sure they don't.  I don't think it makes anything IMPOSSIBLE to do in the game but there is so many items and content it is a game that partially relied on the spreading of content between players to make certain tasks more feasible.  Certainly the sort of thing that will be a huge knock to those who are still passionate about the game.

 

 

It wasn't my thing but wasn't Monster Hunter Tri a pretty big deal too?

[PharoahBeast]

 

By playing on the service, you agreed that you understood this, so... afraid they haven't robbed you of anything.

 

I understand your frustration, but them's the breaks.  I am still shocked that it is happening only a year into the Nintendo Network's life though.

 

 

I feel robbed of good service. Also I don't think anyone really reads the fine print in those booklets haha.

 

I don't see why they cannot use the internet similar to a website and then admin for it so they have complete control.

 

Food for thought-

I also feel accepting things like this encourages companies to take advantage of its consumers.Take a look at facebook. Most people complain that they hate it and it even ranks lower than the IRS in consumer satisfaction. Yet, everyone I know uses it and most everyone is on it. We seem to not agree with a lot of what companies do and then just accept it and do nothing. Seems like the same thing goes on in the gaming industry. Now I am not bashing on nintendo or anything I just feel that when something unfair happens that people should speak up about it.

[Kuzu]

I feel robbed of good service. Also I don't think anyone really reads the fine print in those booklets haha.

 

I don't see why they cannot use the internet similar to a website and then admin for it so they have complete control.

 

Food for thought-

I also feel accepting things like this encourages companies to take advantage of its consumers.Take a look at facebook. Most people complain that they hate it and it even ranks lower than the IRS in consumer satisfaction. Yet, everyone I know uses it and most everyone is on it. We seem to not agree with a lot of what companies do and then just accept it and do nothing. Seems like the same thing goes on in the gaming industry. Now I am not bashing on nintendo or anything I just feel that when something unfair happens that people should speak up about it.

 

Except its not unfair, its not Nintendo's fault that people haven't bought a 3DS or a Wii U yet. They're not obligated to support a 10 year old system because of it.

[Blacklightning]

It wasn't my thing but wasn't Monster Hunter Tri a pretty big deal too?

I have a mate or two on another forum who played it, and going by his word yeah, it did mean a bit. Mainly because there were some monsters that could literally only be hunted online (I think they changed that for MH3U with allowing players into the port solo, even if it meant being horribly outmatched in higher ranks). But Capcom killed their Tri servers before Nintendo had any chance to, about... a year or two previous, give or take a month, so that's more on Capcom's head than Nintendo's.

[JezMM]

I feel robbed of good service. Also I don't think anyone really reads the fine print in those booklets haha.

Totally true, but not an excuse, sorry!

I don't see why they cannot use the internet similar to a website and then admin for it so they have complete control.

You still don't understand. Any internet service requires servers. Every website you visit is sitting on a computer somewhere in the world that has to be on all the time in order for you to communicate with it and download the website for viewing on your own computer. Games work in the same way. The internet is physically run by computers all over the world, and it costs money to run these powerful computers that get demand from thousands to millions of people who use them, and Nintendo has decided to turn off the computers that the Wii and DS connect to for their Wi-Fi services. Either because not enough people are using them anymore to justify running them, or because they want to encourage people to move onto the Wii U, 3DS and the Nintendo Network. Obviously it's sad because you cannot play old games on the Nintendo Network since they were made before it existed, but that's just how it is.

They can't just move the service to something else because... that would be doing nothing. Would still be the same technology at the other end of it. Even if they just reduced the number of servers all that would mean is the service would still exist but become hugely unreliable, especially if what little demand there is for it didn't decrease.

Food for thought-

I also feel accepting things like this encourages companies to take advantage of its consumers.Take a look at facebook. Most people complain that they hate it and it even ranks lower than the IRS in consumer satisfaction. Yet, everyone I know uses it and most everyone is on it. We seem to not agree with a lot of what companies do and then just accept it and do nothing. Seems like the same thing goes on in the gaming industry. Now I am not bashing on nintendo or anything I just feel that when something unfair happens that people should speak up about it.

Bare in mind people are far more vocal about what doesn't work than what doesn't. If you ask someone "what do you think of facebook" they'll complain about how everyone is stupid on it or how they re-arranged the interface and you don't like it, but no-one ever mentions how useful a tool it is to communicate with people who don't care for 1 to 1 e-mail or instant messaging, how pretty much all the services it offers operate flawlessly 99% of the time and the functionality has pretty much never decreased.

The difference here is you literally don't seem to understand what it takes to run an online service, especially a free one. What you ask of Nintendo is literally too much, they cannot run everything forever and this is why they said they may discontinue it at any time in the terms of agreement. They've been completely honest with you from the start.

I'm not sure why you're surprised considering, as far as I know, all online games from the PS2/GCN/Xbox generation had their online services discontinued. It looks like PS3/PSP and 360 might be an exception since they use the same overall service as PS4/Vita and One do, but Nintendo knew the Wi-fi service was archaic and unreliable in design and upgraded it to the Nintendo Network - and unfortunately old games just aren't compatible so it was inevitable that Wi-Fi would be switched off one day.

[LunarEdge]

Except its not unfair, its not Nintendo's fault that people haven't bought a 3DS or a Wii U yet. They're not obligated to support a 10 year old system because of it.

Can't really agree with that part.

 

Monster Hunter Tri is pretty big, but you can get a better version of it for the 3DS (or Wii U). I just feel bad for those in Japan who have to pay to get online with Tri unless they dropped the fee a long time ago.

[Kuzu]

Can't really agree with that part.

 

Monster Hunter Tri is pretty big, but you can get a better version of it for the 3DS (or Wii U). I just feel bad for those in Japan who have to pay to get online with Tri unless they dropped the fee a long time ago.

 

Well like I said, its not really Nintendo's fault now is it.

[PaddyFancy]

It sucks and I think its a bad decision, considering how big the Wii and DS were, and a very select few who own a Wii U.

[Autosaver]

It sucks and I think its a bad decision, considering how big the Wii and DS were, and a very select few who own a Wii U.

It forces people to upgrade if they want to continue playing their games online.

 

Mario Kart and Smash Bros were and still are huge online wise. All those people playing can't get more of what they love without upgrading.

 

A smart move imo would be to kill off the services for every game but Mario Kart and Smash Bros a little bit earlier. Kill Mario Kart when Mario Kart 8 comes out, and kill Smash Bros when Smash Bros 2014 comes out.