If Nintendo announcing the discontinuation of the eShop for the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U wasn't bad enough, strap yourselves in. Around 10:00pm CST, with no prior announcement, both the DSi Shop and Wii Shop Channels were quietly pulled offline, leaving previously downloaded purchases and titles unable to be redownloaded, showing error codes 290502 and 209601 for both systems respectively. Nintendo's CDN, which is the download server that houses all of the update and shop data, remains to be active with the ability to download titles with tools such as NUSDownloader, showing that only the frontend of the stores have suddenly disappeared. Nintendo's status page still lists that everything is operational, though it's currently unknown if this was a mistake like last year's eShop incident, or if this really is the end of an era.

Source

[6-7-2022 Update]
Both shops are back online. See this post for more information.

 

[Videomanman87]

Sadly, I saw this coming LONG ago. Any digital system where it depends on the companies servers is going to disappear at some point. It is not a matter of IF but WHEN. It is up to us to backup/maintain our own stuff and not trust the company, who just won't do it.

I have seen this time and time again, starting in the mid 90's with ebooks by Microsoft. Remember Lit format? They were the worst, kept making changes which then made your whole library unreadable until you downloaded all the books AGAIN. Then fast forward a few years and they made some excuse to pull it offline without recourse. The lucky few had found tools to decrypt/deDRM the books before the door shut.

That is just one example. As I said, sooner or later they all pull this. Give some excuse such as "normal life cycle" or "not used much anymore" or "too expensive for us to maintain" or even "due to security we have to take it down, the system has vulnerabilities and it is too much trouble/expense to fix." The security excuse it used the most by the way.

I don't buy digital versions unless I have a method of removing the DRM or backing up in such a way so that I can move to other hardware should that be necessary. Until recently I didn't purchase any eshop titles. Now though, I have quite a few. BUT I have them all backed up and I can move to another WiiU console (or emulator) should that be needed in the future.

 

[AlamosIT]

DSi and Wii Shop are still offline?

Is there a way to update a DSi/Wii console right now?

 

[godreborn]

DSi and Wii Shop are still offline?

Is there a way to update a DSi/Wii console right now?

I think you can update the wii with modmii, don't know about dsi.

 

[slider86]

I heard it's back up now.

 

[urbanman2004]

I heard it's back up now.

Yeah, but purchases on either eshop will officially shut down on March 2023.

 

[zoogie]

Yeah, but purchases on either eshop will officially shut down on March 2023.

The 3ds/WiiU eshop shutting down sales in 2023 is a different story than the redownload pause that DSi/Wii just experienced (which is what this thread's topic is).

 

[MaxiBash]

Just kind of baffles me that people think the shop is back online in full when I made clear in my post that wasn't the case. Nintendo doesn't make any more money by keeping these services up. People can just redownload their titles, that's it.

The DSi Shop was shut down back in 2017. The Wii Shop Channel was shut down back in 2019, but that didn't mean both shops' services were completely suspended by that. Nintendo made it loud and clear that after that period, people could still redownload titles they already purchased (with a select few mandatory titles such as transfer software). But after this unexpected maintenance, people were left scratching their heads thinking Nintendo completely terminated both shops, not even allowing people to redownload titles. The company has full right to do so. It's in their EULA that YOU agreed to that Nintendo may terminate these services completely without notice.

The channels don't get terminated again once the eShop shuts down - that's not how it works. Hell, maybe in the near future, the eShop gets some maintenance done and the same will happen with what happened here. After March 2023 hits, you can still access the shop, get system updates (if any are even planned at this point) and redownload your titles, as Nintendo made clear this is "for the forseeable future". And when the eShop will completely shut down, not even allowing redownloads of software, we'll just have to wait and see for ourselves.

I'm just tired of this back and forth banter in this thread. Stop thinking Nintendo wants more money or coming up with BS that the Wii/DSi shops are shutting down the when the eShop goes down.

 

[slider86]

I'm just tired of this back and forth banter in this thread. Stop thinking Nintendo wants more money or coming up with BS that the Wii/DSi shops are shutting down the when the eShop goes down.

Nintendo have no issues making users pay for the same games across platforms so of course they want more money. Even if they're in their legal rights to remove downloads it's not good business practice to mishandle legacy content because "meh, they'll buy it again from us". They risk a backlash from their fanbase which in some people's eyes is already kind of shaky.

 

[error404bsod]

Just kind of baffles me that people think the shop is back online in full when I made clear in my post that wasn't the case. Nintendo doesn't make any more money by keeping these services up. People can just redownload their titles, that's it.

The DSi Shop was shut down back in 2017. The Wii Shop Channel was shut down back in 2019, but that didn't mean both shops' services were completely suspended by that. Nintendo made it loud and clear that after that period, people could still redownload titles they already purchased (with a select few mandatory titles such as transfer software). But after this unexpected maintenance, people were left scratching their heads thinking Nintendo completely terminated both shops, not even allowing people to redownload titles. The company has full right to do so. It's in their EULA that YOU agreed to that Nintendo may terminate these services completely without notice.

The channels don't get terminated again once the eShop shuts down - that's not how it works. Hell, maybe in the near future, the eShop gets some maintenance done and the same will happen with what happened here. After March 2023 hits, you can still access the shop, get system updates (if any are even planned at this point) and redownload your titles, as Nintendo made clear this is "for the forseeable future". And when the eShop will completely shut down, not even allowing redownloads of software, we'll just have to wait and see for ourselves.

I'm just tired of this back and forth banter in this thread. Stop thinking Nintendo wants more money or coming up with BS that the Wii/DSi shops are shutting down the when the eShop goes down.

People are dumb lol

 

[MaxiBash]

Nintendo have no issues making users pay for the same games across platforms so of course they want more money.

How is this in any way related to maintenance ending? Like I said in that post, Nintendo does not gain money from people redownloading software. People can't even add points or purchase new software, so this is completely redundant regarding the context of what this post is about.

 

[slider86]

Nintendo does not gain money from people redownloading software.

You just answered your own question here.