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[Raw64life]

This is the future the digital only crowd wants. Thank god for the game preservation community.

 

[i-Jest]

Honestly, that's a longer time frame than I would've expected.

Glad we got the warning way in advance, though -- the Wii shop channel had a lot of really good games that are absolutely worth owning.

I put off buying everything I wanted for far to long. Hopefully this old 4BG SD card I have will hold it all.

 

[jetsetnickradio]

This sucks.
I just recently bought a Wii and some Classic Controllers. I was planning on collecting a bunch of Virtual Console games that I could play with my girl. Looks like I only have until March to either buy everything I want or preload a bunch of Wii Points.

 

[jsnepo]

If I upgrade the Wii VC games to Wii U, will they still be played on the Wii?

 

[cereal_killerxx]

Now that I think about it, I never got that sequel for that Lost Winds sequel. Should get it!

I was literally just thinking the same thing! By the way, both games are now available on steam.

 

[stan423321]

So, as someone who never used the Wii Shop channel but would like to buy some great games, how does this work on a Wii U?

- Can I access the Wii Shop through the Wii U's Wii Channel, purchase and download the games to my external HDD for use on Wii U? Or do I need to plug in my Wii first, purchase and download them there, and then transfer over to my Wii U?
- Do Wii VC titles suffer from emulation issues like the Wii U versions do (i.e. the dark filter in NES/N64 games)?

Wii U can access the Wii Shop Channel without a prior transfer. In fact I think you need to do it to make a transfer, there's an icon on a fresh system but all it does is directing you to shop to download the real transfer thing.
These games don't use the Wii U HDD or flash, they use a separate flash chip inside of Wii U that mimics the Wii's flash chip to a degree; you can store them to SD card. A late update to Wii which Wii U inherited allows you to select an SD stored title, get it temporarily copied to flash and launched, which system refers to as launching from SD but that's not that.
The Wii VC had way less complaints over video quality than Wii U. Some people complain over differences in analog encoding in some Wii models and Wii U though, not to mention whatever is happening when you use HDMI on the latter. Also, some games had actual changes in content, usually due to legal agreements expiring or legal teams getting more cautious (red crosses), though that tends to be on Wii U version too; I think Mario Tennis 64 was a freak case where a lot of stuff got cut, but don't quote me on that. And if you're in Europe, most games suffer from PAL slowdown while in Wii U case US imports are the rule and not the exception.

This sucks.
I just recently bought a Wii and some Classic Controllers. I was planning on collecting a bunch of Virtual Console games that I could play with my girl. Looks like I only have until March to either buy everything I want or preload a bunch of Wii Points.

The thing is, you can't preload too many Wii Points, so I am kind of confused by both people counting on the checkout period and the length of it.

 

[InfiniteCombo]

Incredibly, the Wii is the only console that allowed gifting to friends, something that neither Sony or MS has done with far more robust and advanced storefronts. And Nintendo's own VC offerings have yet to be surpassed on either the Wii U or 3ds, as far as the number of systems represented.

... and, from what I understand, also as far as the quality of the emulation. The sense that I get from reading around the internet is that the Wii is one of the best consoles for glorious 240p gaming.

 

[DarkConfidant]

Time to buy all the import games. Crap.

 

[Linkstrikesback]

If I upgrade the Wii VC games to Wii U, will they still be played on the Wii?

No.

At least, not without doing some homebrew magic.

 

[GurgleBot20]

In a perfect world, or even one where Nintendo, Sega, etc weren't godawful at preserving their legacy, these games would be available or playable on the switch.

I would strongly recommend getting what you're even slightly interested in and transferring the stuff over to your PC, and have a backup. These games are playable in Dolphin, and that's not going to go away anytime soon. Also, if I remember correctly, you might be able to access the Wii Shop channel through Dolphin itself.

 

[Ahasverus]

Goodbye forever Castlevania Rebirth, one of the best of the series

 

[bluenote]

Really stupid question, but would this really drive up the collector's market for used Wii systems? For instance, if you had a Wii with 50 downloaded games, I would guess there would be a big demand for that considering those games are no longer available?

 

[Gaardus]

Really stupid question, but would this really drive up the collector's market for used Wii systems? For instance, if you had a Wii with 50 downloaded games, I would guess there would be a big demand for that considering those games are no longer available?

The market would be flooded with systems using pirated games pretty quickly.

 

[IdreamofHIME]

Good bye Chrono Trigger, I doubt Square will ever allow you to be so cheap again.

 

[DXB-KNIGHT]

😢

 

[kirby_fox]

I transferred the stuff over to Wii U but I guess I need to download it all to make sure I've got it. It's still on the Wii side of things.

 

[moltonasty]

Thank god for homebrew

 

[GamerJM]

Well damn. There's a TON of content on there that'll be lost forever. I'm tempted to just spent a grand on Wii points sometime within the next several months and get everything worthwhile I can.

I think this is the first moment of digital gaming that's really a wake-up call. There can realistically be a window of less than 13 years available for a platform in its entirety.

 

[themagicalkitsune]

This is the future the digital only crowd wants. Thank god for the game preservation community.

I don't know why you would choose this (of all occasions) to shit on the digital-only crowd. Virtual Console is digital-only by necessity, a physical version of it would not be viable. Besides it's always been a great service and one of the first of its kind to offer a quick way of playing old games on a current gen console.

Unfortunate it has to end like this though, yeah. 11 years is not really that long in the internet age.

 

[Megatron]

I transferred the stuff over to Wii U but I guess I need to download it all to make sure I've got it. It's still on the Wii side of things.

I didnt think it worked like that. I thought nintendo wipes their games off the old system after you transfer.

 

[InfiniteCombo]

I remember the first time I bought stuff on the Wii VC shop. That music, damn. It's like it was instantaneously nostalgic for some reason.

That music is god tier, they need to find a way to bring it back.

 

[woopWOOP]

Damn.
Guess I'm gonna have to get a couple of physical SD-cards so I still have my digital downloads somewhere

Awesome

 

[ThatsMytrunks]

If you have a Wii with a lot of digital purchases and you're worried about the inevitability of losing those licenses, it's time to look into softmodding your Wii and making backups of them. There's lots of tutorials out there and the process has gotten pretty easy.

https://sites.google.com/site/completesg/

 

[Wowfunhappy]

In a perfect world, or even one where Nintendo, Sega, etc weren't godawful at preserving their legacy, these games would be available or playable on the switch.

I would strongly recommend getting what you're even slightly interested in and transferring the stuff over to your PC, and have a backup. These games are playable in Dolphin, and that's not going to go away anytime soon. Also, if I remember correctly, you might be able to access the Wii Shop channel through Dolphin itself.

Not only can you access the wii shop channel in Dolphin, you can actually add points and buy games from within Dolphin. I’ve done it. It’s cool as heck, imo, and a great way to legally acquire roms for use in other emulators.

You do need to dump some files from a real Wii or Wii U. On the plus side though, any titles you’ve bought on the “donor” wii will appear as purchased on the wii shop channel in Dolphin, and vise versa.

 

[Omegasquash]

Looks like I'll be grabbing a few things off that list.

 

[I am Christina Aguilera]

I don't know why you would choose this (of all occasions) to shit on the digital-only crowd. Virtual Console is digital-only by necessity, a physical version of it would not be viable.

 

[MrSaturn99]

I'm amazed its lasted this long. That's incredibly gracious of Nintendo.

I'll probably grab a couple SNES/WiiWare games and redownload some stuff before it ends.

 

[Peltz]

Ah okay, I didn't read it yet but that's good to know.

Also is a pretty shitty indicator for will eventually happen to the 3DS Eshop.

The Wii U and 3DS eShops will be a far bigger blow when they go. I love my Wii, but there are only so many WiiWare titles worth owning (about 20 or so really good ones).

The Wii U and 3DS have probably quadruple the amount of quality download-exclusive titles among them.

 

[Gai Murakumo]

End of an era. The Wii Shop channel has really good games in it including the Rebirth games of Contra and Castlevania. Sad to see it shut down.

 

[Peltz]

If I upgrade the Wii VC games to Wii U, will they still be played on the Wii?

No.

And don't do this. You cannot play in 240p on Wii U. I found this out the hard way :-(

 

[Friend of Sonic]

I'll need to find something to blow my points on, preferably a developer who could use a donation for their cut of the sale

 

[CrashPrime]

So VC on switch confirmed for 1/29/19.

I kid. Wii really has one impressive retro game lineup, and being able to output most VC at 240p solidifies it as being a key retro device to own.

 

[Jonneh3003]

RIP. Wiiware has so many underrated gems including a whole line of original Konami games like Castlevania Rebirth, Contra Rebirth and more. Damn, what a great store.

 

[BoosterDuck]

This is the future the digital only crowd wants. Thank god for the game preservation community.

lol, oh man Steam and Battle.net are going to shut down in 5 years

 

[stranno]

You think PS3 and X360 shops will stay up forever?

In fact, the original XBLA arcade for XBOX didnt last long, it took less than a year to shut down.

But it only had 27 titles and a bunch of DLCS.

 

[JinjoUnchained]

"Welcome to ze Wii Shop Cha-Nell
We got software, und games to sell
So we wrote this hypnotic tune
To turn your brain into a prune
Ahh, pruny brains
The kinds of brains that buy stuff
Even games that no one ever played
Ya, we got lots of those"

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3ruNfajgUr0

 

[GabeTheGrouch76]

Though twelve years is actually a bit longer than I expected, it's a shame the Wii Shopping Channel will be going down soon. The Wii VC has one of the absolute best catalogue of retro games on any system that the Wii U VC has hardly come close to reaching, and some of the WiiWare titles weren't bad either.

I've already transferred most of my Wii VC/Wiiware games to Wii U, but I think there might be a few stragglers I might be missing (either due to space or not playing it a lot). I should probably remedy that.

 

[kunonabi]

Im not too behind on US VC stuff but I got a ton of stuff to by for my japanese Wii. At least I have enough time to scrounge up the funds. If only miiverse had received the same mercy.

 

[Crimsonclaw111]

Now that the U is dead dead I'll probably go ahead and get the few essentials that never came to it.

 

[SmokedMeat]

I'm baffled that the news of VC shutting down has people scrambling to buy more games. If anything them shutting down the service, and locking your purchases down to Wii/Wii U is all the reason for me to avoid it entirely.

 

[jsnepo]

No.

At least, not without doing some homebrew magic.

Now that sucks! Wii U doesn't support 240p.

 

[Gaardus]

I'm baffled that the news of VC shutting down has people scrambling to buy more games. If anything them shutting down the service, and locking your purchases down to Wii/Wii U is all the reason for me to avoid it entirely.

Better locked to the Wii than locked out entirely. Quite a few games are ONLY available through the Wii Shop Channel (legally).

 

[JDH]

According to the FAQ you won't be able to redownload things. It will completely shut down.

Wow, that's ludicrous. This is precisely why I don't "do" digital.

 

[Pokemaniac]

This is a lot more significant than the DSi Shop, since the vast majority of the content on that one was absorbed into the 3DS eShop.

 

[GamerJM]

It's worth noting that in addition to WiiWare having games lost forever, Virtual Console is currently the only way to legally obtain a sizable amount of games for a price that isn't completely exuberant. It also might be the easiest way to play NES and NTSC N64 games on a CRT with better image quality than what you can yield from S-Video without resorting to modding your consoles, at least to my knowledge.

 

[Peltz]

In a perfect world, or even one where Nintendo, Sega, etc weren't godawful at preserving their legacy, these games would be available or playable on the switch.

Nintendo tried that with the Wii U, but the ancient architecture came back to bite them in the ass. You either want them to design current hardware, or you want them to focus on upholding a legacy. You can't (unfortunately) have it both ways. In the legal world, you cannot get an unlimited license to host someone else's games. All contracts need to have an end point to be reasonably enforceable. Nintendo simply doesn't have the right to mandate that every third party needs to port their games to new hardware. Nor do they have the means to do so themselves for first party software.

Furthermore, the Wii remote is not even compatible with the Switch, so some games that rely on its layout may be awkward to play on a joycon.

I'm not apologizing for Nintendo and I do wish they would host their stores indefinitely on the native hardware (seriously, I wish this shop weren't closing down). But expecting them to update every game for every new piece of hardware feels like an unreasonably tall order.

Furthermore, if they told someone releasing a game that they must update it for all new hardware decades after release, no developer would accept that term. This is simply the way it has to be (regarding changing hardware).

 

[Airola]

I'm baffled that the news of VC shutting down has people scrambling to buy more games. If anything them shutting down the service, and locking your purchases down to Wii/Wii U is all the reason for me to avoid it entirely.

So no-one should be interested in getting some exclusive games they might never be able to buy from anywhere ever again?

 

[randomkid]

Not only can you access the wii shop channel in Dolphin, you can actually add points and buy games from within Dolphin. I’ve done it. It’s cool as heck, imo, and a great way to legally acquire roms for use in other emulators.

You do need to dump some files from a real Wii or Wii U. On the plus side though, any titles you’ve bought on the “donor” wii will appear as purchased on the wii shop channel in Dolphin, and vise versa.

Can you also switch your Dolphin Wii to the Japanese Wii shop and add Japanese Wii points without too much fuss? (I know on a region-modded Wii you can even use American credit cards to make Japanese Wii purchases). There are many many games that will never be cheaper to buy anywhere else on the Japanese Wii shop so it would be great to have that as another option for now.

 

[moltonasty]

Wow, that's ludicrous. This is precisely why I don't "do" digital.

A huge number of these games are digital only, and exclusive to the Wii.

This is where homebrew comes in. It will be easy for people to play all of these games for years to come, even after Nintendo shuts down the shop.

 

[Hilarion]

Fixed. VC sure did drop off a cliff, sadly

Not...really? The Wii U eShop has a fantastic assortment of over 80 GBA games the Wii one doesn't have and the GBA library alone outweighs the Genesis and Turbografx ones. Not to mention the several dozen DS titles and the several dozen Wii titles that the Wii didn't have for download.

I've probably played more GBA titles on my Wii U than anything else and it's one of my favorite systems as a result because the GBA library is so strong.