Friday, June 28, 2013

It's Official - Wii's U.S. Nintendo Channel, Forecast Channel, News Channel & more taken offline.

The message you get now when trying to access the Nintendo Channel.

Coffee Beans
If you have read stories around here over the last few years, chances are you have probably seen my data report stories on Wii games. I would gather information from the Wii's Nintendo Channel, and then create images with the reported play-time on games that showed things like average times played and total hours played. You can even read a data report I did on the Everybody Votes Channel, HERE.

Well, as of now, the Nintendo Channel (seen above), Forecast Channel, News Channel, Everybody Votes Channel, and Check Mii Out Channel have been taken offline on the Wii, to never return again. Perhaps Nintendo will release a News and Weather app on the Wii U, but I doubt they will ever release a Nintendo Channel app that shows play-times of Wii U and Wii games, because that data could provide hints of sales numbers for games as well.

You can see the how the other Wii Channels now appear if you attempt to visit them, in the image below.
Click to enlarge

Caffeinated Thoughts
I have used the Nintendo Channel almost weekly, for the last 3+ years. Even weeks and months when I didn't post data reports, I would record the data for my records (data nerd). Seeing the Nintendo Channel services discontinued is the biggest disappointment for me out of all the Wii Channels discontinued. There were some newer Wii games I was hoping to get to report on, like Pandora's Tower, but due to the Nintendo Channel service being stopped that data will now most likely never be known.

While we used the Forecast Channel, Everybody Votes Channel, Check Mii Out Channel, and News Channel, none of them were used anywhere near as much as the Nintendo Channel in our house, and some of them hadn't been used regularly in years.

The Nintendo Channel was by far my favorite Wii Channel and not just because of the data, but also because Nintendo started things like Nintendo Week on it and it provided a good way to watch trailers of new games coming out as well.

Questions
Did any of you use a Wii Channel (or two) regularly, and perhaps will be disappointed now that these Wii Channel services have been discontinued?

Did all of you know that the Wii Channels in the U.S./Western market were being taken offline? I didn't see any sites really report on them being discontinued in the U.S., but I did see it mentioned for Europe and Japan.

22 comments:

  1. I never really used any of those channels too regularly, though I figured you would be as impacted as anyone I knew when the Nintendo Channel went down. My Wii actually died on me about a week and a half ago. Right now I have it unplugged to see if it will power on again in a few days, but basically none of the light indicators are showing up any more. Kind of a bummer, as it had just been replaced by Nintendo for a different hardware failure just over a year ago. 3 deaths for 2 different Wiis in 4 years. :( Sadly, that's more than all of my other systems from this gen combined, and it got less play than the PS3 and 360 in my house too. Kind of a bummer.


    If it doesn't miraculously start working again soon, I'll be stuck between deciding if I want to pick up another, or just wait a while and eventually nab a Wii U, since at least that system, unlike the PS4 and Xbox One, is backwards compatible. So, for what it's worth - I probably wouldn't have gotten much use out of those discontinued channels anyway, lol

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  2. Yeah, I live in the US and had seen a few articles about a month back stating they will be discontinued. They might have been European sites though im not sure, but one i know was yours. I would use the Weather Channel to see temps around the world and ofcourse sometimes to just spin the globe, that was always fun. i would check the news to some of the news would be on there a day faster than some of the national news outlets. I would also do the polls on Everybody Votes Channel. i liked the Nintendo Channel for the stats on games and even used the DS Connect to download demos. I thought that was really cool. I spent the past few days going on all the channels soaking in as much as could be from them before they would be discontinued. I even submitted a poll request question to Everybody Votes with a question about putting those channels on Wii U as apps. I also went to Check Mii Out to import some of my favorite miis from favorites. Those channels will be missed. Hopfully they rise from the ashes like a phoenix to shine again even better on the wii u.

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  3. True story - I was really disappointed to see this happen because I immediately thought that "Damn, no more data reports from coffee."


    A real loss, that. Fingers crossed Nintendo does open up a Wii U equivalent.

    ReplyDelete
  4. "My Wii actually died on me about a week and a half ago."

    If I ever have a Wii/Wii U issue, I'm going to request to send it to Nintendo in Washington, I have just heard repeat issues with repair jobs.

    You now, my neighbors 4 times (I think), The Dread Pirate Guy, clearly they are using bad parts and/or just bad repair processes.



    We're still on our first Wii, but I'm cautious about leaving discs in it (don't), and any new Wii games will be played on the Wii U in Wii mode because of the issues.


    Thanks for the comment and feedback!

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  5. "They might have been European sites though im not sure..."

    Yeah, all the reports I had seen only pertained to the European and Japanese Wii Channels being taken down. I didn't see anybody report on the U.S. side.

    " Hopfully they rise from the ashes like a phoenix to shine again even better on the wii u."

    I agree, I hope they have some more cool Wii U Channels/app ideas planned out, the spinning of the globe was one of the best things in the Forecast Channel. We used it for geography purposes with our oldest, being that we have family all across the United States.



    Thanks for the comment and feedback, and if you already have a Wii U my NNID on it is Coffees.

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  6. Do you have a problem with the discs? I read something you posted previously about not leaving games in your Wii. Does it wear them out faster?

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  7. The comment was filtered for a specific word, so I gave it the Mater treatment! ;)

    But, as for no more data reports, I have enough data recorded for YEARS (maybe even a decade) more of data reports if I want to keep doing it.

    The best part about it, is my HDD doesn't have to worry right now with more data!



    Thanks for the comment!

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  8. I won't really miss any of those channels. I quit using them frequently years ago. Never liked Everybody Votes. Now what happens, tho? Just a dead channel on the Wii? Is there a way to remove them? I'd love to free up some more memory...

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  9. If the disc is being read even just sitting in the console, then it probably wears out the laser faster. Some applications like Netflix shut the disc drive off though. The Wii seems to have problems with double-layered discs, which can cause problems for the console.

    So far, our Wii is working fine, but I know some that have had issues with the disc drive going out.



    Hope that helped some.

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  10. I do believe you can delete some of the Channels, as we have some stored on our SD card.


    Thanks for stopping by!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Gloria Hexom MaloneyJune 30, 2013 at 8:04 AM

    I used the wii news channel the first thing every morning and several times throughout the day. It was part of my routine. I liked the news categories. I used wii fit to record my weight often and appreciated the graph to see how I was doing toward my goals. I will miss the news and feel kind of angry they just discontinued it like they did since that was one of the reasons this old lady bought the system to begin with.

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  12. Man, all I have to say is that I'll miss the Nintendo Channel. It's the only one above I used a lot.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I haven't checked the Wii Fit Channel app, but do you know if it's still working? I think it should be, as it wasn't one of them listed.


    As for the news, I did like the way it was a simple news feed that could scroll, without having to hear anybody saying anything.


    Thanks for the comment and feedback!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Yeah, it was my most used channel, by itself. I do find it odd they removed the Nintendo Channel the most though, because it was also a way to communicate with videos directly to Wii owners about the Wii U.


    Thanks for the comment!

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  15. I forget what I did with ours one time, when I think there might have been a no power issue, but I honestly can't remember now. I'm trying to think if there was a way to hard reset it, but I don't think so...

    I can't remember, but ours did something weird, either black screen or didn't turn on, but it self corrected.

    Do you think perhaps it could be the power cord?



    Thanks for the feedback!

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  16. They did have some interesting channels, though in the end it was really more about the Nintendo and shopping channels. I'm assuming that you can't even go in and view your own local gaming time, correct? That's a shame even if mine is very low.

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  17. Nope, no access to the local gaming time. Would your local gaming show an actual time, or just "INCOMPLETE"? :)

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  18. Guess they didn't want to re-tool the channel for local access..


    In that case 'incomplete' would be on everything. A better bet would be something like 'Barely Anything'. Though I do think I had about 18hrs into Mario Kart and a few others over 12.

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