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.

 

[slider86]

I tried to get into Wii Shop a few days ago and all I got was some dots across the screen. I thought there was a problem with my Internet. They better fix this.

 

[zoogie]

Nobody is reporting this but gbatemp so I suspect it's just server problems on Nintendo's end.
They would at least announce they had shut down the redownload service if that was the case. Even if no advance notice given.

https://en-americas-support.nintend...service-discontinuation-q&a-(updated-3/31/17)

 

[SaulFabre]

That explains me why i can't download anymore the Wii System Menu to my Dolphin Emulator by using Tools > Perform Online System Update... so sad

Thank you very much Nintendo for supporting the Nintendo Wii by over these years :,)

 

[SuperDan]

I don't think that's on the wii. that's a ds game on the wiiu.

Opp's Hahaha i think i didn't thunk about it right !!

 

[Natsukashii]

So, you are one of those weirdos that buys games and keeps them sealed. May I know why? Investment?

And the fact that you bought the game and kept it sealed doesn't make it morally right to download a backup, as in, you know... You can't backup a sealed game. But I understand where you come from.

I open all my games, in the vain hope to make retrogaming price retardedness dissappear. Games are to be played, dammit!

The fact of existing ways to play backups should make people think better before paying 600€ for Rule of Rose.

oh no that's just to protect them because the games I buy aren't really important ones like I don't have any pokemons game but then I got 3 different copy of GRIS because there was 3 different versions of that game that I like. Games nowadays don't have anything inside like bonus or manuals so if I will not put the gamecart/bd in my console, I don't have any reason to open the seal.

 

[fmhugo]

In the digital future, you will own nothing

and be happy :V

 

[Stone_Wings]

I personally don't care a single bit. I already have every Wii and DS game I'd ever want or need. And if I needed any more, they are available to download all over the place.

 

[HarveyHouston]

Good to know; good thing there are large repos of this stuff already. *cough!* MarioCube! *cough!*

 

[MaxiBash]

Nobody is reporting this but gbatemp so I suspect it's just server problems on Nintendo's end.
They would at least announce they had shut down the redownload service if that was the case. Even if no advance notice given.

https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/16616/~/nintendo-dsi-shop-service-discontinuation-q&a-(updated-3/31/17)

The problem is that the eShop's (and I guess other shops too) ToS states that they're allowed to pull these services offline at any given time without prior announcement. This is still likely an outage, but one day we'll think it's an outage, and it's instead Nintendo doing what I described above.

 

[Xzi]

Guess that's Nintendo's roundabout way of letting everybody know that it's open season for piracy on DS and Wii.

 

[wolf-snake]

Guess that's Nintendo's roundabout way of letting everybody know that it's open season for piracy on DS and Wii.

Yeah... Like the DS and Wii weren't like the most pirated Video Game consoles back in like 2008

 

[raxadian]

Is not like there isn't a web archive and easy ways, more or less, to hack the devices. I was not even aware the DSi shop still worked.

 

[Something whatever]

freeshop replacement when?

 

[yraverageamongoose]

This strikes me as unintended.

maybe even un-nintended?

 

[MisterSheeple]

Yeah, I'm gonna bet it's not coming back. From the sound of things, this must be some kind of critical or fatal error, or at least a moderate issue that Nintendo can't be assed to fix because nobody (read: hardly anybody) uses NUS anymore on Wii and DSi. And honestly I'm surprised this day didn't come sooner. Would probably be a good idea to work towards a community replacement/alternative for updating Wii and DSi systems.

 

[CMDreamer]

This is going to happen with every single digitally released game at some point, no matter which console we mention.

And that's why I prefer physically released games. Even though they are going to die too at some point... :sigh:

 

[AleronIves]

Never mind. Carry on.

 

[AmandaRose]

I just bought Shantae less than 30 seconds ago, so DSi games on the eShop are working fine for me.

That's not what the issue is. The issue is with the actual DSI shop an on actual DSI. What you did was buy a DSI game on the 3DS eshop.

 

[AleronIves]

Wait, the DSi still works? I thought the ability to download stuff on an actual DSi was removed years ago. Thanks for the correction.

 

[MisterSheeple]

Wait, the DSi still works? I thought the ability to download stuff on an actual DSi was removed years ago. Thanks for the correction.

It was removed, but the Wii and DSi could still receive system updates after that point, as well as redownload previously purchased titles.