Nintendo has responded to concerns about the Wii and DSi virtual stores after they’ve both been offline for days.
In a statement to Eurogamer, the company said both shops are “undergoing maintenance,” but didn’t indicate when they might be returning. Nintendo added it “will provide an update at a later date.”
Both the Wii and DSi virtual storefronts went down around March 16, with no word from Nintendo at the time as to why players could not access them. Whilst the Wii shop closed in 2019 and the DSi shop in 2017, this only impacted new purchases and still meant users could redownload content.
However, the abrupt closures of these stores means that they cannot be accessed at all, as they each throw up an error message. Error code 209601 appears for the Wii, indicating the console cannot connect to the Wii shop service, whilst 290502 comes up for the DSi, meaning the same disconnection has occurred.
It is currently unclear if the stores will come back online at all, or in what capacity if they do return.
These temporary closures come soon after Nintendo announced that both the Wii U and 3DS would be slowly closing purchase opportunities on their virtual stores, with them both doing so fully by March 31, 2023.
After this date software will be available for redownload, but it will not be purchasable.
Part of the Q&A on these closures (which was removed but can be found here) addressed concern that classic titles would no longer be playable, answering that Nintendo Switch Online offers titles from legacy systems and that the company has “no plans to offer classic content in other ways.”
In other news, Stalker 2 developer GSC Game World looks to be moving all of its staff away from Ukraine and potentially setting up in the Czech Republic.
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