It’s a sad, sad day for Nintendo fans. The Wii Shop Channel will be shutting down on January 31st, 2019, the company announced in a statement today. After this date, users will no longer be able to buy games or applications from the channel for the Wii or Wii U.
“In 2019, we will close the Wii Shop Channel used on Wii and Wii U (the Wii Shop Channel is accessible on the Wii U via the Wii backwards compatibility feature), which has been available since December 2006,” Nintendo said in the statement. “We would like to thank our loyal customers for supporting the Wii Shop Channel, and would like them to continue to enjoy software downloaded from the shop.”
Also, as of March 28th, 2017, it will not be possible to add Wii points to accounts. Thankfully, users can still re-download purchased WiiWare and Virtual Console titles, then transfer them to the Wii U using the Wii System Transfer feature, for now. These services will also be shut down in the future, and Nintendo said they will provide the exact dates for such changes.
Of course, your titles and apps downloaded from the channel will still be accessible as long as they are on your Wii or Wii U, but if you delete them after the shut down, you probably won’t be able to get them back.
Perhaps the saddest part of the Wii Shop closing is the loss of the bop that is the channel’s menu music, which has been the source of many a meme. Though we won’t be able to hear it in its purest form come 2019, you can rest assured it will linger on the internet for years to come.
