End of an Era: Wii Shop Channel Shutting Down Within Days

The Wii Shop Channel has been live for nearly 12 years. Despite the smashing success of the Wii and the continued achievements of the Wii U, it is now the era of the Switch. With the Nintendo Switch having topped the hardware sales charts for 2018, it seems few fans are complaining. That being said, it’s still the end of an era. Now Nintendo fans are about to experience the brunt end of that loss.

After nearly a solid dozen years of selling WiiWare and virtual console games, the Wii Shop Channel is now planning to shut down on Jan. 30, 2019. Many of the games offered within the service were never given a physical copy release or shifted to newer Nintendo consoles. Beyond that, Nintendo reportedly plans to eventually cease providing the ability to redownload previous purchases from the now fading channel. Consequently, many of these wonderful games will be perishing with the service.

Here is Nintendo’s original statement on the matter from back in 2017. Check it out below.

“On January 30, 2019, we plan to close the Wii Shop Channel, which has been available on Wii systems since December 2006. We sincerely thank our loyal customers for their support.

“You can still add Wii Points until March 26, 2018, and purchase content on the Wii Shop Channel 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.

“If you have Wii Points to spend, content you want to re-download, or content you’d like to transfer from a Wii system to a Wii U system, we recommend you do so while the services are still available.

“If you have any questions, please see our Q&A.

“Thank you for supporting the Wii Shop Channel and for being such great fans of Nintendo.

“Sincerely,

“Your Friends at Nintendo.”