Cap'n Jack
I will burn my dread!
- Joined
- Aug 18, 2011
- Messages
- 6,965
- Reaction score
- 375
I’ll be honest, my time with the Wii Shop Channel over the years has been brief, I didn’t use it as much as some people, and I’m amazed that Nintendo kept the lights on as much as they did, since the last time anything was added to it was 2013, and that was well past its prime.
However, the Wii Shop Channel was one of the first “Virtual Console” services on a console and in my opinion, remains one of the best ever. A wide variety of systems represented, with almost all of the “essentials” you can think of for each respective platform. In many cases, emulation was also high-quality, so the Wii Virtual Console was a serious contender if you were in the market for old games at a good price.
It launched in December 2006, and if you take a look today, on its last day, it shows. First you’ll notice Wii Points, a relic of a time when these on-line services for some reason didn’t want to deal in cash, so each service had their own fancy points system - the Xbox Live Arcade did this for a time, too, with “Microsoft Points”. 1 Wii Point equals 1 cent USD, so 500 Wii Points, the standard price of 8-bit games, for example, would be $5. Another amusing song of the times is in the Channels section, where most Wii Channels have been delisted, but for one last day, the Skyward Sword Save Data Recovery Channel remains. Basically, it’s a bug fix patch. Creating a whole channel for a bug fix was the best Nintendo could do with these early days of console on-line connection. Then there’s WiiWare, original digital titles for the Wii, like the Xbox Live Arcade. Unlike Xbox’s service, WiiWare didn’t quite take off, and looking through the 35 pages of WiiWare you can see the beginnings of things like retro throwback indie games, digital shovelware, and extremely low-budget late-2000s DeviantArt-anime schlock. It was a simpler time, before these things went to smartphones and mutated into the predatory slot machines masquerading as games that we get today. Going to the Wii Shop Channel is a reminder of a more innocent time.
Personally, the gaps between my usage of the Wii Shop Channel were massive, years at a time, but I still owe it some things. The Wii Shop Channel is how I first played Super Mario Bros. 1, 2, and 3 (that’s the Japanese Mario 2, and the Wii Virtual Console is how Americans first played the original version of that game, and I hated it). It’s also how I played the WiiWare game World of Goo, one of the few games I actually beat as a young lad, and probably my first taste of what would be called “indie games” these days. I also have memories of playing Pokémon Rumble with a friend and getting bored, since the sad fact is that most WiiWare is trash.
Still, it’s sad that this place is shutting its doors. For many years now it was just a novelty whose aged structure was the thing that kept people interested in it, but now the inevitable day has come. It was my first exposure to “retro” and “indie” games, two things that I still love today, and for that, I salute the Wii Shop Channel. Part of my motivation to some day buy Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is seriously because it has that wonderful music, to preserve forever and remind me of a simpler time.
However, the Wii Shop Channel was one of the first “Virtual Console” services on a console and in my opinion, remains one of the best ever. A wide variety of systems represented, with almost all of the “essentials” you can think of for each respective platform. In many cases, emulation was also high-quality, so the Wii Virtual Console was a serious contender if you were in the market for old games at a good price.
It launched in December 2006, and if you take a look today, on its last day, it shows. First you’ll notice Wii Points, a relic of a time when these on-line services for some reason didn’t want to deal in cash, so each service had their own fancy points system - the Xbox Live Arcade did this for a time, too, with “Microsoft Points”. 1 Wii Point equals 1 cent USD, so 500 Wii Points, the standard price of 8-bit games, for example, would be $5. Another amusing song of the times is in the Channels section, where most Wii Channels have been delisted, but for one last day, the Skyward Sword Save Data Recovery Channel remains. Basically, it’s a bug fix patch. Creating a whole channel for a bug fix was the best Nintendo could do with these early days of console on-line connection. Then there’s WiiWare, original digital titles for the Wii, like the Xbox Live Arcade. Unlike Xbox’s service, WiiWare didn’t quite take off, and looking through the 35 pages of WiiWare you can see the beginnings of things like retro throwback indie games, digital shovelware, and extremely low-budget late-2000s DeviantArt-anime schlock. It was a simpler time, before these things went to smartphones and mutated into the predatory slot machines masquerading as games that we get today. Going to the Wii Shop Channel is a reminder of a more innocent time.
Personally, the gaps between my usage of the Wii Shop Channel were massive, years at a time, but I still owe it some things. The Wii Shop Channel is how I first played Super Mario Bros. 1, 2, and 3 (that’s the Japanese Mario 2, and the Wii Virtual Console is how Americans first played the original version of that game, and I hated it). It’s also how I played the WiiWare game World of Goo, one of the few games I actually beat as a young lad, and probably my first taste of what would be called “indie games” these days. I also have memories of playing Pokémon Rumble with a friend and getting bored, since the sad fact is that most WiiWare is trash.
Still, it’s sad that this place is shutting its doors. For many years now it was just a novelty whose aged structure was the thing that kept people interested in it, but now the inevitable day has come. It was my first exposure to “retro” and “indie” games, two things that I still love today, and for that, I salute the Wii Shop Channel. Part of my motivation to some day buy Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is seriously because it has that wonderful music, to preserve forever and remind me of a simpler time.
