The final bastion for Wii online is finally crumbling…

It was only a matter of time: the Wii Shop Channel, which remained active even as Wii’s online play and every other channel went down over the past three years, will finally close in 2019. While only Nintendo branches in Japan and Europe have sent press releases regarding the matter, it’s all but confirmed the same applies for America.

The details are as follows: the purchase of all WiiWare/Virtual Console games will close on January 31st, 2019, at 07:00 EU time and 14:59 JPT. However, parts of the service will close as soon as next year, as the point system will close March 26th, 2018, at 22:00 EU time. The service itself, as well as the ability to redownload games, will close at an unannounced date in 2019. In that case, we recommend you get to archiving any games you had to delete for space!

(However, Nintendo of Europe’s press release mentions there’ll be “exceptions” to redownloading games. Whether or not this is referring to titles removed from the service remains unclear, but regardless, all the more reason to get on this)

It’s also been confirmed that, yes, this affects the Wii Shop Channel avaliable via Wii U backwards-compatibility, so there’s no loopholes.

By the time of its closing, the Wii Shop channel will have run for twelve years. It’s insanely impressive and quite gracious of Nintendo to keep the service running that long, especially as every other online aspect of the Wii went down. With over 800 games released on the channel, the service was chock-full of classic games and new titles to enjoy. Most of all, however, we’ll miss that groovy tune. Any chance we can bring that back for Switch eShop, Nintendo…?

Are you bummed Wii Shop Channel is ending? Let us know in the comments below!