Nintendo has announced it will discontinue online services for games on the Wii and DS systems. This means players will no longer be able to access online multiplayer, leaderboards, and other functions that require the Internet.
Games affected by this include Wii titles like Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Mario Kart Wii and Animal Crossing: City Folk and DS titles like Pokémon Platinum, Mario Kart DS and Dragon Quest IX: The Sentinels of the Starry Skies, among many others.
It should be noted that this will only affect online modes in games and not online services offered by platforms. This means the Wii Shop Channel, Virtual Console, DSi Shop, Internet browsers, and streaming video services like YouTube and Hulu will be completely unaffected. Nintendo has released a statement on the matter, saying, “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.”
The disconnection of online game services is scheduled globally for May 20th, 2014. If you want to take one more lap online in Mario Kart or battle with a trainer across the ocean one last time in Pokémon, now’s the time to do it.
