As forewarned, online gaming features for the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS have shut down today. This had been announced earlier this year as the company behind Nintendo's online servers, Game Spy has begun shut down of all multiplayer services - both with friends and with strangers. This will affect all games that use Wi-Fi for multiplayer content but does not mean that other internet features have been disabled, such as the Internet Channel, Netflix streaming, and downloading games from the Wii Shop.
It is worth noting that Nintendo games are not the only ones affected by this shut down - third party titles that span across many consoles will be affected in some way by this. Some are making efforts to remedy this situation but Nintendo is not one of them citing that incompatibilities and difficulties would make trying to find another way to host these games not effective.
This shut down affects popular multiplayer titles such as Mario Kart Wii, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, all Pokémon titles on the DS and many others. This does not, however, affect online gaming on the Nintendo Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. Those online services are provided directly by Nintendo through "The Nintendo Network".
It is with a heavy heart that I say goodbye to an era of VR points in Mario Kart but I am hopeful seeing that future games on the Wii U should have an enhanced online experience that some games (I'm looking at you Brawl) could benefit from. So let us not dwell on our memories for too long - there are many incoming games that will soon fill the void.
