Topic: Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection Shutting Down on May 20

[Fatty The Hutt]

This is unfortunate. I had better get to downloading those daily Layton puzzles, I guess, if that's even still a thing.

[Luigi Dude]

This is especially weird considering Wii U and 3DS are backwards compatible. Nintendo is essentially forcing players to move to newer installments of those series. The kill switch date is kind of strange as well, 10 days before Mario Kart 8 when there are 30+ millions of Mario Kart Wii out there. I suppose many who even played online could have already moved onto Mario Kart 7.

I'd imagine Nintendo's own data shows there's a lot of people still playing Mario Kart Wii online, despite the fact Mario Kart 7 has been out for a few years now.  Which would make sense because Mario Kart is more popular on home consoles then handhelds.  They're probably worried many of these people will continue to play Mario Kart Wii if it allows them to keep playing online and not spend over $300 for the newest home console Mario Kart.

[UncleBob]

I read a (conspiracy) theory on another site that seemed to possibly bring more light to this.

Wii and DS multi-player is powered by GameSpy Tech - which was bought out by Glu Mobile in 2012.  The thought is that the contract between the two companies is up and for some reason or another, the two decided not to renew it (Glu is known for raising rates considerably on other companies since they bought GST).

It makes me wonder if there *could* be some kind of back-end update that would allow games to connect to a different server for multi-player/DLC... but developing such a middleman would probably just not be worth the financial commitment for Nintendo.

[Ian Sane]

I haven't used the Pokémon Bank because I don't really have a need for it since prior to X my most recent Pokémon game was Ruby.  But in order to catch 'em all obviously transferring Pokémon from the DS games is required (well you can always trade online in X/Y with people that already transferred their old Pokemon but let's ignore that for a second).  Pokémon Bank is cloud based storage so obviously you connect the DS Pokémon games to the internet to transfer them to the bank and then transfer from there to the 3DS game.  So if the DS Wi-Fi is kaputz how can you do that?  Can someone that has used the feature fill me in?

And if you can't transfer from the DS games to X/Y the Pokémon Bank service is pretty much fucking useless for the time being because who really needs cloud storage for ONE game?  The whole point seemed to be to get the Pokémon not found in X/Y into the game using the older DS titles, which in the case of the Black/White games are still easily found in stores.  This whole feature, because of delays, was only just released and is effectively going to be discontinued a few months later and Nintendo charges for this feature.  Until the follow-up to X/Y comes up the Pokémon Bank and Transporter are pretty damn niche services that will have proven to be of practical use for about four months.  That's ridiculous!

Unless I really don't know how the whole thing works and the DS games would use the 3DS internet service to transfer the Pokémon into the bank.  That's why I'm asking for clarification on that.

[Stratos]

I'd bet the Pokemon Bank is Nintendo Network based so that may not be impacted too much for the older games. The shops will still function and if the Bank is based off of that connection it should still work.

[UncleBob]

I have no idea how 'Bank works, but I assumed that the Pokémon bank app launched as its own application on the 3DS, then, would read/write data from whatever compatible Pokémon game card was in the slot of the system (or any digital versions of X/Y loaded into the system).

This would completely get around the need for Black/White/2 to use WiFi Connection to access 'Bank.

[Oblivion]

Bank != Transporter. They are two entirely separate apps.

[Mop it up]

I read a (conspiracy) theory on another site that seemed to possibly bring more light to this.

I saw stuff like this too. I guess it's a conspiracy theory but it sounds plausible to me.

[pokepal148]

Ian let me map it out for you

-diamond and pearl(and other 4th gen games) used the DS phat/lite's gba slot to let users transfer their pokemon
-black and white require 2 DS systems one loaded with the previous gen game and the use of DS download play to make a transfer
-the poketransporter I believe goes directly into the b/w cartridge itself and creates a transfer that way before uploading them onto the bank.

[azeke]

I remembered one Wi-Fi Connection game i wished i played more online than i did.

Street Fighter II on Wii.

One of the millions SFIIs on VC (Genesis Champion edition) had online hacked in by M2.

I got it a year or so ago and messed around with Honda, it was kinda laggy, but it was alright.

[MegaByte]

I read a (conspiracy) theory on another site that seemed to possibly bring more light to this.

Wii and DS multi-player is powered by GameSpy Tech - which was bought out by Glu Mobile in 2012.  The thought is that the contract between the two companies is up and for some reason or another, the two decided not to renew it (Glu is known for raising rates considerably on other companies since they bought GST).

It makes me wonder if there *could* be some kind of back-end update that would allow games to connect to a different server for multi-player/DLC... but developing such a middleman would probably just not be worth the financial commitment for Nintendo.

Seems that Glu is just shutting down all GameSpy services period. I don't know how much GameSpy-specific code is involved, but it sounds like anybody using it is hosed.

[pokepal148]

I wonder if Nintendo had their dsiware/wii shop channels transferred to an internal server.

[pokepal148]

Hold up hold on I've gotta quick question, why the hell did Glu Mobile buy gamespy in the first place, was it just to shut everything down out of spite I mean what the heck. I don't see what they have to gain here I mean are they building an MMO of some sort?

[MegaByte]

It sounds like from the very beginning, they were just interested in the tech for their own games, and supporting everybody else was just excess baggage. http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=207033&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1721900&highlight=

[marvel_moviefan_2012]

I always knew when I learned it was "powered by Gamespy" it was temporary, **** I think people even voiced fears about that back then but I can't remember everything people bitched about from that long ago, most of the noise was Wii was a terrible name and motion controls were going to ruin gaming. And something about Gamecube 2.0 or some crap like that. But i do remember thinking myself it was  a bad move to rely on a separate company whose future was uncertain, especially at the time when all of this was new territory. I never used the online for Wii, ever, I never owned a single online capable game that I know of. I played Mario Kart DS and Tetris DS online a couple of times and remembered why I hate online gaming.

[MisterE13]

You know, having seen the list of affected games, I still find myself worrying if I'm missing out on any gems. I'd love to see a (community written?) list of games with stuff like the exact Wi-Fi features of the game, some workarounds to accessing content without them (like the ability to conect locally to unlock things often thought of as "Wi-Fi only"), whether the online features are actually good, whether the game is good without them, etc.

[Pokemobs]

I know I'm late but for the older games Black White Black 2 White 2 etc they could just use regular wifi