One of the best selling consoles of all-time, The Nintendo Wii, will see its online services shut down in 2019. In a statement by Nintendo on the support section of their website, the Wii Shop can be accessed “Until January 30, 2019. In the future, we will be closing all services related to the Wii Shop Channel, including redownloading purchased WiiWare, Virtual Console titles, and Wii Channel, as well as Wii System Transfer Tool, which transfers data from Wii to the Wii U system.”
The Wii Shop, which originally opened for business in December of 2006, has been home to over 200 virtual console games. Many of which are now available on the Wii U eShop, but other titles, including a little ol’ game called Super Smash Bros, are only available on the original Wii Shop. Once the Wii Shop shuts down, so will the only place to access an official digital copy of one of the most beloved fighting games ever created.
Frankly, I think it’s amazing that Nintendo has kept the Wii Shop available this long, almost 11 years at this point. The Wii sunset back in 2013 with its multiplayer shutting down shortly after in 2014, but Nintendo still kept these apps, virtual console games, and the important transfer tool which brings Wii data over to the Wii U, completely available.
Speaking of classic Nintendo games, what about the Nintendo Switch’s virtual console? There’s still no official announcements or release date just yet, but that doesn’t stop the speculation. Here’s a Tweet from Kaz Harai for example: