Topic: Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze Disappears from Wii U eShop

[John Rairdin]

There can be only one.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/47134/donkey-kong-country-tropical-freeze-disappears-from-wii-u-eshop

In a mysterious and unannounced move, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze has been removed from the Wii U eShop. Whether accessing the eShop through the Wii U system or through Nintendo's own website, the option to purchase the title digitally has been removed.

For digital owners of the game, it can still be downloaded via the download history option on the eShop. Nintendo's official website also still offers a link for physical purchases, only the option to buy digitally has been removed.

The new Switch version of the game is less than a week away, leading many to theorize on Nintendo's motives. However at this time Nintendo has made no comment on the intentions behind the removal. It is of course still possible that this is merely a coincidental mistake.

[ShyGuy]

Buy it on the new system, SUCKAS!

[Soren]

The Wii U's legacy is getting thrown into whatever broom closet the Virtual Boy's legacy sits right now.

[NWR_insanolord]

This doesn't make any sense. I really doubt the availability of the game on a dead system that nobody bought would have any effect on the Switch version, so why open yourself up to even a small amount of bad PR by doing this?

[Order.RSS]

Wise move for the Wii U!
None can resist the funk, it's best to bow out early.

Can't wait to lose Captain Toad to the Triphop Toad edition next!

[Lemonade]

This is the problem with digital versions of games

[NWR_insanolord]

This is the problem with digital versions of games

No, because the game is still available to download for people who already bought it, it just isn't able to be purchased going forward. It's no different from if you couldn't find a physical copy of a game. It's just a really weird choice on Nintendo's part.

[ShyGuy]

Maybe they thought people would get confused after seeing the commercials, buy it on the Wii U, then be mad that there was no Funky Kong.

[Soren]

It's no different from if you couldn't find a physical copy of a game.

Which is a thing that was supposed to be solved by a digital storefront. Granted, Tropical Freeze was a game Nintendo gave away for free multiple times but it still makes no sense to delist it.

[Mythtendo]

It makes sense when you consider that the Wii U version is $20 on the eShop and the Switch version is $60 (with the only real difference is adding Funky Kong as a playable character). And I can't imagine that there are too many people who would want to play the game and have a Wii U but haven't bought it yet.

[NWR_insanolord]

The thing is, I didn't know it was $20 on the Wii U eShop, and I'd bet neither did most people, because the people who were interested in buying the game on Wii U did so years ago. That would have gone largely unnoticed if Nintendo just did nothing, but pulling it from the store got them dinged by everybody in the gaming media.

[Wanderlei]

Apparently still on EU shop.

[TOPHATANT123]

This has to be a mistake, right?

[Circasurviver]

Did they remove Mario Kart 8 from the Wii U?

[lolmonade]

Did they remove Mario Kart 8 from the Wii U?

No, that's still up there.

[lolmonade]

I have a hard time imagining there's much of an overlap of people who own both the Switch and Wii U, see the Switch game is full-price, then would decide to buy it digitally rather than go to their local shop or ebay to buy a physical copy for under $20 on Wii U, if price were the determining factor.

I understand Nintendo not wanting to compete with itself, but if anything, this guarantees that they get $0 from any future Wii U shopper rather than what they'd get from the few people that might buy it digitally form them on that platform.

[Ian Sane]

Having any sort of concern about a Wii U game affecting Switch sales is silly since it's actually pretty hard to get a Wii U these days and hardly anyone owned one when it was current.  The whole reason all these Wii U games are getting re-released is because they're like new games for most of the Switch userbase.  If the Wii U game sales were a serious threat to Switch sales then the Wii U would have been successful enough that a new Nintendo console probably wouldn't have come out yet in the first place.  And if you really want this for the Wii U there I still see tons of copies at my local Wal-mart.  It seems to be a pretty easy game to find a physical copy of so this is just discouraging one specific type of sale.  The game is also plentiful in the used market.  If a Wii U owner wants it they can get it so what does making it just slightly harder to come by accomplish?

And there are already several Wii U-to-Switch ports and I don't recall any of them being discontinued from the online store.  What inspired them to start now and why don't they remove all of them?

Does Nintendo have to pay Rare for using Donkey Kong characters that debuted in DKC?  Is there some money to be saved in only having one version of the game available for sale?