Slashdot Mirror
Nintendo To Cancel Weather, News, and Other Built-In Wii Apps In June
damn_registrars writes "Nintendo has announced that at the end of June it will be canceling the services of several of the channels that are built in to the original Wii, including the Weather, News, Everybody Votes, and Mii Contest. This will also affect the WiiConnect24 services, though should not affect the Wii shopping channel. They added: 'Exchange of Wii messages on the Wii Message Board, exchange of Mii characters on the Mii Channel and message/data exchange within some games will be disabled.'"
this is the future of gaming if the publishers get their way.
Looks like it
i had a wii years ago and after setting these up out f curiosity i never used these services
the GUI for anything but gaming is pretty limited by the controller
Can it be?
Since nobody actually uses these things, we're turning them off.
Back when I had a Wii, in order to get these network services, you essentially had to set the device to never turn off. And that was something I deemed as pointless and a waste of power.
And, really, who needs to get the weather and news on the Wii?
But, somehow everybody seems to keep acting as if the game console is going to become your internet hub.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Wii is dying. Or something.
Dear Loyal Customers,
Fuck U
Waaahaa!,
Nintendo
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
I liked the weather app on the Wii....
But, how odd when you still have the Wii console on sale in retail store shelves and you're ending support?
It seems like they are pulling the plug a bit early.
...are pissed.
I've sold my wii probably 3 years ago I wasn't playing it but those were features that I once enjoyed. I'm disappointed that as a console reaches it's end of life that the company can just go and switch off services for it. I know these are added features that don't hinder game play but it still seems like they are taking something people have paid for away. I realize that online services can be costly but this disconnection seems premature. The WiiU only came out at the end of last year and 6 months later they are starting to abandon services on the previous one. That's a shame. In this case I think how Microsoft supports it's products is better. Give it and end of life time frame like their OS's get. Maybe I missed the news but it seems rather abrupt to me and rather soon after the release of the WiiU.
I haven't gotten a Wii U --- still waiting on a Zelda or a Metroid which I'd actually want to play (I want a motion-controlled or IR pointer game like Skyward Sword or Metroid Prime Trilogy) --- Nintendo could at least put this off until all of their fanbase has been serviced.
...Are people even using the Wii U? For the months of November and December of last year you couldn't walk into any retail store without someone asking about the Wii U, seeing a sign up stating that they were either ordering in stock or just freshly out... Since then I haven't heard a thing. Haven't seen an ad, haven't heard a review of a launch title, nothing. I don't know why, Nintendo decided to do things differently with the Wii and they had great success with it...and after all that time they've decided to try and compete with Sony and Microsoft again? Did they actually expect it to work?
.....the Wii becomes a Nintendo branded door stop / boat anchor.
Good ole Nintendo, showing once again that the "fuck you, pay me!" business model is for pussies.
We're going to need a more specialized news site focusing on these kinds of announcements once the "always on[line]" ball really gets rolling!
Article from Engadget (Mentions Japan only): http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/12/nintendo-to-retire-some-wii-network-services-june-28/
Who referenced Nintendo's "Japan" website: http://www.nintendo.co.jp/support/information/2013/0412.html
And that website in English: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nintendo.co.jp%2Fsupport%2Finformation%2F2013%2F0412.html
I see various posts on here talking about how nobody used those features, or how this is normal EOL, or even berating Nintendo for doing this. But this is not an issue specific to the Wii, Nintendo, or even to consoles in general. This is the future of cloud based computing combined with locked down devices.
As long as we allow the manufacturers of devices (whether it be a gaming console, a tablet, a phone, or even a desktop PC) to control what software we run and what services we connect to, we do not own the device. The manufacturer does, and they can (and have repeatedly proven they will) remove features at their whim.
Unfortunately people haven't learned from the many, many examples in the past, and they keep lining up to thrown money at companies who are actively hostile toward their user base. Until that stops, nothing will change.
If you want ANY feature on a device, you better be sure that you have enough control of the device, and of the service supporting it, that the manufacturer can't remove it, because if they can, they will. It's only a question of when.
It is irritating to hear of companies doing this because basically they do it just to disrupt someones routine. These services cost the company very little to operate as they were being run on a cloud where where they consume insubstaintial resources and only when the services are actually used. Its hard to believe they will save anything from this.
How much does it cost for Nintendo to leave these services running? I hope they at least push an update to the OS so it doesn't show errors / blacked out squares on the screen where these features used to exist.
I miss the days of having consoles that didn't have retroactive feature loss.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
I never much trusted the wii news channel. There was virtually never any Canadian news (where I live) and always gobs of fluffy US entertainment news. It didn't take long to realize my interests were being decided for me.
sptagnant. AS Linux on slashdot.org
Um, DLNA is, specifically, for working with your own digital files.
Then why don't more devices that support DLNA stream playback also support stream playback over the SMB protocol? Is it because they think Nintendo and Sega jointly own exclusive rights in anything with the same initials as Super Mario Bros. and Super Monkey Ball?
If I want to watch YouTube, I have other devices which still connect to my network.
Are these "other devices" connected to displays the size of a living room TV, or are they stuck on a 19-23" desktop computer monitor? I'm told there aren't a lot of people willing to hook a PC up to a TV. Or has this changed recently?
Johnathan Winters died.
Get some PRIORITIES, Man!
For a moment, I seriously wondered whether they could do that. But if anyone could cancel the weather, and the news, it'd probably be Nintendo.
including the Weather, News, Everybody Votes, and Mii Contest.
I loved making goofy little miis for this, it was one of the few reasons I turned on my wii from time to time.
Especially since a lot of the software the wii had would put miis in the background, and I'd rather see mine than some other boring one, so the contest thing was extra incentive for doing such.
My Wii is used primarily by my 8 yro for Lego Games, and Netflix - I bet that is 90-95% of how Wii's are used anyway.
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
meh, dont even remember last time it was powered on.
One nice thing about the Wii was the free multiplayer gaming; no subscription to xbox live or any such. Granted the game play was a little less stellar than other consoles, but you could still play COD online with no hassle. I hope that isn't being killed along with the rest of this.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
The cynic in me would say "Gee, why not the shopping channel? Guess everything but 'buy more crap' gets the axe", but then again, yes, that's pretty much it. Shopping channel may make a dime or two, but the rest ... who needs it? Weather channel? Flip the TV channel over to the one that is actually relevant for you, where's the need for a weather channel on a Wii? Same goes for news and the rest, you can't even argue that you lose anything that you didn't already have in another way, essentially, it was surplus.
It's fascinating how people start yammering about the sky falling and the Wii being retired. Well, considering how old it is, maybe it's about time to do just that, but so far I can't see anything pointing towards Nintendo dropping the Wii altogether. Where it's pretty much common that servers get shut down and games, not just some braindead service with very limited use, games you bought and paid for, become "retired", forced out of your hands, it's quite odd that people complain about Nintendo shutting off some service you didn't even pay for explicitly (unless someone really wants to claim that this was the feature why they bought the Wii... please, say that with a straight face!).
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If 19-23" is good enough for the user, then probably. If not, they've probably hooked it up to a larger display.
I've noticed a correlation: a small monitor for small budget works and a large monitor for large budget works. Producers of large budget works tend to have more marketing money to get into the walled gardens (BD and Netflix for movies, console app stores for games) supported by devices marketed for connecting to large screens. It's easier to view small budget works on PCs, but PCs are generally not marketed for connecting to large screens.
Why does somebody else's use case for media consumption matter to you?
Somebody else's use case for viewing works would matter to a producer of works because a producer has to reach the audience on devices that the audience already owns.
PS3 as a inferior MythTV frontend compared to a $39.00 Raspberry Pi.
If you've already bought a PS3 to play PS3 games, then its inferior MythTV frontend costs $0.00 extra. A Raspberry Pi, on the other hand, costs $39.00 extra plus shipping.
Discus
So I can return my old Wii and get a full refund? I mean, with Nintento willingly crippling it and disabling features I've paid for?
As recently as last year you had people pointing to Wii sales and claiming, smugly, that Nintendo was the real boss in the console wars. This was, oh, 4 years after anyone with half a brain could see Nintendo was doomed no matter how many Wiis that people bought and played for 3 months then left to collect dust.
The Wii was always a gimmick. High definition does matter, and the base of games you offer matters. It has mattered since the day the Wii was released, only it's innovative, at the time, controller was a selling point that made it a temporary fad.
Sorry, nostalgic Gen Xers, Nintendo is dead meat.
Not really any big deal to me, or my kids, which seem to be more entertained with their iPod or DS these days anyway. Given their ease of use and cost (our used iPhones turned into iPods for them) I'm wondering if I'll even invest in the next console from any maker. I'd thought about the next Xbox as my kids mature but I'm not so sure given the reports. There's so much entertainment for them already, I'd rather them be outside playing or interacting with friends or reading and less screen time, not more.
If you have a tv without an hdmi socket then pretty much the only thing that can stream all of the bbc iplayer, amazon lovefilm and netflix.
On the one hand, I'm not a big fan of functionality being removed from a device, but given it's dependent on a server farm somewhere to run, it stands to reason they'd sunset it eventually. That said, nobody (myself included) used these services. The Wii takes forever to boot up (even from sleep), and I have to figure out where the kids hid the remote to drive it. Then the weather app is only updated every 8 hours, and is telling me the weather of the town two towns away because that's the closest one in their system. It was vaguely neat in 2008 when I got my Wii, but now my wife and I have iPhones and an iPad, which we've found to be slowly replacing all functionality formerly done by our Wii... Main thing we do with it these days is stream Netflix. On the other hand, a lot of people are using their Wii's to stream Netflix... http://techmedianow.blogspot.com/2011/07/25-of-us-netflix-users-using-wii-to.html
What's Gabe going to do now?
Worst. Signature. Ever.
Reading only half a headline can make your head spin.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
This will be interesting. I've seen Wii consoles used in the odd hotel lobby outputting to a tv, just running the news feed. Much cheaper and easier for the average person to set up than a PC or paying subscriptions to a news service.
- This sig deliberately left blank. Nothing to see, move along.
Someone in the hacking comminity will create a channel via Homebrewthat mimics the functions of these defunct channels. For news and weather, they will get the information from some free public RSS-type feed.
Are they going to end support for Netflix on the Wii?
The website cheap wholesale and retail for many kinds of fashion shoes, like the nike,jordan, also including the handbag,sunglass,jeans,shirts,hat,belt and the decorations, online store,All the products are free shipping, and the price is competitive, after the payment, can ship within short time. the goods are shipping by air express, such as EMS,DHL,the shipping time is in 5-7 business days! YOU MUST NOT MISS IT, === http://www.sheptrade.com/ === cheap jordan shoes $35, Air max shoes $36, Nike/shox $35, handbag $36, Sunglasses $16, New era cap $12, wallet $19, belt $18, jewelry $15, T-shirts $20, Jeans $36, (NFL MLB NBA NHL) jerseys $25, === http://www.sheptrade.com/ ===
That and the fact that the PS3 supports more formats than the RPi for playback, not counting the fact that you can play games on it. Plus RPi doesn't do Netflix or Amazon Instant Video.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
====( http://www.sheptrade.com/ )==== This is a shopping paradise We need your support and trust, you can find many cheap and high stuff,Believe you will love it, WE ACCEPT CREDIT CARD /WESTERN UNION PAYMENT YOU MUST NOT MISS IT!!!