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Wii and Nintendo DSi stores have been down for days, what's going on?
Nintendo made no statement, but both the Nintendo Wii Shop and Nintendo DSi Shop remain offline, without the option to download any games.
Both Nintendo Wii Shop (Wii Shop Channel) and Nintendo DSi Shop have been completely offline for days. The internal digital stores for Wii and the Nintendo DSi family of systems (DSi and DSi XL) have not allowed their users to access their respective shopping portals since March 16 at around 10:00pm (CST), but Nintendo has not explained the reason behind this maintenance period.
Errors 290502 and 209601. Wii Shop Channel and Nintendo DSi Shop, offline
While the Wii Shop Channel permanently ceased purchases on January 31, 2019, players can still download those games or applications previously purchased. The same goes for the Nintendo DSi digital store, whose discontinuation on March 31, 2017 only allows downloading previously purchased DSiWare programs. The problem is that, if the servers are not active, it is not even possible to re-download the content already purchased.
At the moment, errors 290502 and 209601 are the ones appearing in the Wii and Nintendo DSi stores, respectively. GameXplain has published a video in which they explain that it is not only an access problem through the US servers, but also European players do not see these messages and cannot redownload previously purchased software.
However, we do not have any further information at this time. It is unknown whether it is a temporary maintenance period or a total shutdown of these two digital stores.
Nintendo 3DS and Wii U eShops to close for good in 2023
This news comes shortly after it was announced that Nintendo will close the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U eShop digital stores in March 2023. It will still be possible to download previously purchased games and software, but transactions will be officially discontinued.
The debate about the preservation of video games and how companies can contribute to offering alternative legal access to those video games that have disappeared continues to be on the table.