For any of you Wii and DS owners out there who still plays Brawl, Mario Kart Wii, the Pokemon DS games and Mario Kart DS online with friends, That time will not last forever. Nintendo has confirmed that the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service will be discontinued on May 20. The company’s statement to Polygon states that they are pulling the plug to prepare matchmaking services on upcoming Wii U and 3DS games like Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U.
As of May 20, 2014, certain online functionality, including online play, matchmaking and leaderboards for many Wii, Nintendo DS and Nintendo DSi games, will no longer be accessible. For a list of Nintendo games and services that are affected, please check http://www.nintendo.com. Users can still play these games in offline mode, which continues to offer a rich game-play experience. Other online functionality on Wii and Nintendo DS, such as access to the Wii Shop Channel, the Nintendo DSi Shop and video-on-demand services, are also not affected at this time.
Online play for Wii U and Nintendo 3DS games will be unaffected (aside from the Wii mode on Wii U and Nintendo DS games played on Nintendo 3DS family systems).
Our focus now shifts to readying our Wii U and Nintendo 3DS matchmaking services for upcoming games such as Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros.
We at Nintendo sincerely thank our fans for their continued support of our company’s legacy systems. Your enthusiasm for games made for these systems speaks to their longevity, and the passion of Nintendo fans.
What are your thoughts on these Nintendo news? Leave them below in the comments! 🙂
Joshua Smith
I hate that they do this because it makes you feel like your games and systems you bought will soon be worthless and unplayable…. you can STILL PLAY original Xbox games online!…. ridiculous.