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Downloads for digital Wii and DSi games are once again available, nearly four months after those stores were brought offline for “maintenance.”
Nintendo ended the ability to purchase DSi games in 2017 and ended Wii digital purchases in 2019. While you haven’t been able to purchase new games from those stores since those dates, you were still able to download games you had previously purchased – that is, until a mysterious maintenance period began in March 2022. Nintendo simply said at the time that the stores were “undergoing maintenance,” but as the months dragged on, players were not especially hopeful that those downloads would ever return.
Yet today, with no fanfare, players (including the folks at GameXplain (opens in new tab)) discovered that both stores were suddenly online. You still can’t make new purchases, but you are able to redownload anything you previously bought. So yes, your historical purchases of Super Mario RPG, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Donkey Kong 3 are once again preserved.
For now, at least. Nintendo’s support articles still warn that Wii Shop Channel downloads (opens in new tab) (and Wii U transfers) “will eventually end at a future date,” and DSi downloads (opens in new tab) “will also be discontinued at some point in the future.”
The Wii Shop Channel is perhaps best known for providing legal classic game downloads under the Virtual Console branding, but both it and the DSi shop feature a number of original games that were never made available on other platforms.
For now, just enjoy the soothing tones of the Wii Shop Channel music (opens in new tab) for as long as they last.
Check out our list of the best Wii games if you’re looking to finish out your collection
