Nintendo has announced that several features from the original Wii, are set to shut down on 28th June, bringing an end to their seven year lifespan and further encouraging people to move over to its newer offerings on the Wii U – at least that's got to be the intention.
The list of services coming to an end includes:
- Nintendo Channel
- News Channel
- Forecast Channel
- Everybody Votes Channel
- Mii Contest Channel
- Data exchange with Wii Friends – including Wii messages on the Wii Message board and certain exchanges between Miis
Not all services are shutting down however, with a continuation of both the Wii Shop Channel and Today's Accomplishments on the Wii message board.
“We at Nintendo sincerely thank you for your continued patronage of our company's products,” Nintendo said in a statement (via CVG). “We apologise to those of you currently using these services.”
KitGuru Says: Can't say I ever made much use of these. I've had a Wii for years and if I wasn't playing a game on it, I wasn't using it. Did you guys enjoy Wii channels that much?
No I won’t miss them – those channels seemed fairly pointless anyway. But to me it reinforces the problems with an “always on” console (and yes I’m talking to you Microsoft). Most Wii users aren’t going to miss these things – even if it their demise does come only months after the Wii U arrived. But for games or (God save us) consoles that are “always on” we are entirely reliant upon the good will of the company we bought them from. They need to keep providing the online service. But let’s face it if they want to sell us something else (like Nintendo with the Wii U) it is unlikely that “good will” will last long.