The Nintendo Wii’s eShop will officially close in 2019

 

The problem with digital purchases is that they rely on the availability of online infrastructure to support it, whether it be to redownload content or to access digital-only content like DLC or other game patches.  

 

Today we get to see how the online infrastructure for a modern console dies, with Nintendo announcing that their Wii eStore, the Wii Shop Channel will close sometime in 2019.  

 

The closure of the Nintendo Wii Shop Channel will happen in stages, with Nintendo stopping users from adding Points (in-store currency) to their Wii Shop Channel on March 26th, 2018, preventing the purchase of new WiiWare, Virtual Console and Wii Channels from January 31st, 2019 and finally closing the storefront in 2019. 

 

This means that new money cannot be added to the Wii eShop after the first stage of the store’s closure in March 2018, new purchases stopping in January 2019 and all downloads will stop later in the year.

 

In 2019, we will close the Wii Shop Channel used on Wii and Wii U (the Wii Shop Channel is accessible on the Wii U via the Wii backwards compatibility feature), which has been available since December 2006. We would like to thank our loyal customers for supporting the Wii Shop Channel, and would like them to continue to enjoy software downloaded from the shop.

We plan to end all services related to Wii Shop Channel, including the purchase of WiiWare and Virtual Console software, downloads of Wii Channels, and use of the Wii U Transfer Tool, which transfers data from Wii to Wii U.