News broke this week that Nintendo will shut down its Wi-Fi Connection for the Wii and DS on May 20. That means no more online Animal Crossing or Mario Kart or Smash Bros. There's a full list here of affected games. It's not the lack of online play that bothers me. I didn't play online much anyway. No, it's the disappearance of the additional downloadable content that bothers me. Take the Professor Layton series, for instance. I haven't played any of those games—heck, I don't even own any of them—but I want to, and while I'm sure the main games offer more than enough puzzles to keep anyone busy, all those games offer downloadable puzzles. Gobs of them, I hear. They'll all be gone. Same thing with the two Picross games for DS, another couple I've always wanted but never gotten around to buying. What about all the extra content for Dragon Quest IX? I actually own that game, thanks to my wife getting it a couple years ago. Should I drop everything and try to play through that? I can't decide.
Maybe yes? I don't know.
One of the problems with backlogging games today is that if you wait long enough, you might not be able to get the whole experience. Unlike games from 20+ years ago, games today aren't necessarily a complete package, or as complete as they could be. And while that danger probably won't do too much to deter me from buying these more recent games, it still sucks when it comes back to bite me. I don't have time to play all the cool games as they come out but I don't want to give up playing them either, so I guess I'll just have to make do with experience I get. Still, I do hope I get to play those Professor Layton games eventually, extra puzzles or no.
The wfi on the Wii sucks, so no big loss there, but damn, keep the DS games up and running.
I can't imagine too many people are using those services anymore but it's still sad to see them go, especially for the DS. I think that one was a little better implemented and used.
DQ IX is pretty fun. It is a nice game to play. You don't necessarily need all that extra content (which I am just hearing of), but it's definitely a game you should check out.
I haven't played any DQ game yet but from what I hear, IX is as good a place to start as any. The DS remake of IV is super expensive now too 
Wii Online services kind of sucked anyway. DQ9 had extra content in the form of treasure maps which you received by street pass, but unless you lived in an area with lots of DS and DQ9 you would miss out anyway. The game is really great. One of the best DS games.
I love DQ IX, and it had a bunch of extra side quests that you can download free. Plus, it had the store where you could get equipment that wasn't available otherwise. My problem with the DS Lite was that it uses the wrong kind of encryption for my wifi router. I never was able to do the street pass thing because I don't live in a very populated area and odds of anyone else nearby playing it at the same time I was was slim to none.
Aside from conventions like PAX, I think anyone who lived outside of Japan was out of luck 
There was a DQ IX meetup here in Maine, but it was in Bangor and much as I like Dragon Quest, I wasn't driving 2.5 hours to get there.
That sucks. They should be required to keep all DLC on a hard drive somewhere, so it can be downloaded whenever until the end of time, kind of like how the American Film Institute tries to preserve film.
I'm sure if you emulated on your computer, you could still get all the extra stuff. The internet, that's gaming's preservation institute lol
Pretty much, but I want there to be a museum involved, because I need a copy staring over my shoulder to feel right about what I'm doing.
Yeah, looking at it right now, it very much sucks. I'm not too worried about the Wii, since that wasn't its strenght, but man i'm gonna miss the Wi-Fi contents of the DS.
I was never able to get any of the downloadable stuff in DQ IX or participate in the on-line experience because the game does not support my router security. Unfortunately DS games cannot find your internet connection if you are using WPA and I wasn't about to go back to the less secure WEP just for DS games.
That stinks 
I thought it would be fixed with the DSi because that device can be set up to use WPA secured wireless. Then I discovered that any DS game that uses wireless won't allow you to connect from within the game because the game itself is looking for a WEP connection.
You would think that the game developers would have left it up to the hardware to make the connection but noooooooo. :(
I heard about the shutdown on Wired's Game/Life podcast the other day. I immediately went to my DS and Wii and made sure I had everything I wanted there. However, my Prof. Layton games don't give me a menus screen at the beginning so I'm not sure how to get the DLC. I eventually gave up saying, "oh well". It does make you think about focusing on the new stuff first so you don't miss out on these online features that could really disappear forever down the road. I thought about that in regards Xbox Live for the 360 and whether that will get shut down one day. No more online co-op in Crackdown or many other games. It makes you wonder about the short-lived nature of the online experience.
Makes you wonder, do games that rely on the internet to complete the experience have less value ultimately than their older counterparts? I don't know the answer to that
Neither do I, but I worry about it for the long term sometimes. If I pay for a game that I think won't be in my collection after five years, I might not want to pay as much.
I never think that far ahead lol though I figure that if it will be a while before I play it, I won't buy it till it drops as low as I think it will go.
Odd but I don't see Monster Hunter Tri 3 on this list. Does capcom maintain their own servers for that game, or is it shared with Monster Hunter Tri 3 from the Wii U version? I'll need to test this out when things go dark.
I'm more worried that VC/WiiWare support will go away for the Wii, where you won't be able to buy anymore games off te network and instead shift toward the Wii U/3DS.
Welcome to our brave new world. Oddly no one has figured out how to fix this with hacks or anything.
I don't think VC or WiiWare are going away, thank goodness. As far as I know anyway. But it makes me not want to buy anything digitally at full price, in case it becomes unplayable or unavailable. That news about GameSpy shutting down certainly doesn't help.