Nintendo Ends Wii U Repairs (engadget.com) 24
Nintendo has announced the end of repair services for its Wii U console, following the earlier decision to shut down all Wii U servers. Nintendo cited the expiration of the parts retention period as the reason for discontinuing repairs. The move marks the final chapter for the Wii U, which launched in 2012 but struggled to gain traction, selling only 13.56 million units compared to its successor, the Switch, which has sold over 140 million units.
13,560,000 disappointed users (Score:4)
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He literally said the opposite of that.
Re: 13,560,000 disappointed users (Score:2)
Games should be a Regular Sale and not require a contractual arrangement in order to run for more than a few years. Customers intentes to buy a game, not rent it. Handing off the responsibility for servers to the end users or to a third party are both reasonable ways out that Nintendo refuses to explore.
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To be fair there are some games that only really work online. Just not MMORPGs and competitive sports games like Gran Turismo Sport, but also stuff like Mario Maker where access to the library of user generated content is the draw.
They should open source it all, but at least in the case of the Wii U it can easily be hacked to use an alternative online service for many games.
They have a super easy option w/ Mario Maker (Score:2)
Just... allow users to side load the content using the device's SD card reader and run locally.
There was absolutely no reason for Nintendo to make it require infrastructure from them.
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How is it evil? 1. Did they hide the fact that it requires a server? 2. Did they say they'll keep the servers up forever? No reasonable person would expect that.
If you don't want it don't sign up for or purchase it. Whining about terms you knowingly agreed to is evil.
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Whining about terms you knowingly agreed to is evil.
Oh yeah whining is super evil!
Anyhow it's best to pirate everything anyhow. Love my Wii U.
Re:13,560,000 disappointed users (Score:4, Informative)
I agree with you, and I'm one of them, but this is about the end of repairs; the servers going down is old news now. Luckily though, Nintendo is really good about not adding unnecessary networking requirements. All the games that aren't primarily designed around actual network play don't require a network connection to work. (See if Steam or Battle.net would afford you the same courtesy.)
Also, ifixit still sells replacement controller batteries, so there's that.
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Stop being so god damned reasonable! Folks gotta get their rant on!
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A game like splatoon I assume is dead now. That was purely server based.
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Splattoon had a single player mode but that was more of a tutorial practice mode than a game. Few games were that extreme and it was usual for Nintendo to have a game so tied to the server.
What we need is more "big government" regulation that mandates products sold which are dependent on a server for PRIMARY functionality. We shouldn't have to force judges to interpret bait-and-switch laws as applicable to products bound to online services.
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Yea, pretty much, though you can still access the single-player mode, and it's worth mentioning that they kept it online well late into the life cycle of Splatoon 3 even, which most other companies would never have done. Splatoon 1 is almost 10 years old now.
I havenâ(TM)t even bought one yet (Score:3)
Bloody hell, for these ADHD kids time goes by so slowly. For me entire years fly right past me lol and I'm "only" 44. PS5?
I havenâ(TM)t even bothered to get a PS1 emulator working yet. Gotta play those new FF games. And finally finish FF8.
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Why is slashdot unable to display my apostrophe wtf????
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Wii U might be one of the last non-VR gaming consoles that has any value to PC gamers.
Go get one, jailbreak it, and you can play most good Nintendo games, good NES games, and good wii games of the past 30 years or whatever.
Which are pretty much the only games you can't get on steam.
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PS1 works right out of the box for RetroPie ;-) but the rom sizes are a bitch.
Buy/rent (Score:3)
I am certainly not a gamer. But I did have a Wii because I liked a bit of quality casual/puzzle/offline gaming. I loved the Mario World type. When my Wii died, I bought a used Wii U instead, *only* because it could play the few games I already bought, and also offered some new Mario World games. The Switch threw it all away. You couldn't play the actual previous games. Those which it could would be years later and essentially having to emulate them and also buy (which sometimes is actually "rent") them again. So had no interested it the Switch.
Haven't actually touched the console in years. Might again at some point and hopefully it will still work, and if not, find some used one on Ebay.
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hopefully it will still work, and if not, find some used one on Ebay.
You should do that sooner rather than later. The internal storage on those things are known to go bad depending on the chip used, and the chances of it going bad rise the longer it's not plugged into power. (It is a flash type chip.) If / When that chip dies, the console won't boot anymore.
There are hard mods to fix the console should the chip die, but you'll need to restore the console's firmware after doing so. (Firmware was stored on the chip.) Unless you have a complete backup (not just the filesyste
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Thanks for the tips.
I have left it plugged in its entire life (on UPS/filtered power like all my other electronics, of course). But I should probably at least turn it on every now and then.
Honestly, if I lose it completely, even with no hope of replacement, it wouldn't be the end of the world. I am somewhat nostalgic, though.
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>"I have left it plugged in its entire life (on UPS/filtered power like all my other electronics, of course). But I should probably at least turn it on every now and then."
Charged the gampad and turned it on a few hours ago. Working fine. I tried Mario World 3D for a while and OMG I suck.
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Wii was just 480p. The wiiU had an hdmi output and also had a wii chip to play the wii games. Still accepted wii controllers for motion sensing. I am surprised people did not upgrade just for the HDMI aspect. I did. Plus my daughter was all into skylanders back then. WiiU was the most popular console for their different releases (swap force, trap team etc). I think Mario Kart 8 originally was WiiU exclusive.