Update: An Activision spokesperson provided the vollowing statement:
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“The Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service, which provides certain online functionality for many Wii, Nintendo DS, and Nintendo DSi software titles, was discontinued.”
General info on the discontinuation of Nintendo’s Wi-Fi Connection Service for Wii and Nintendo DS titles can be found here.
Original: A bunch of old Call of Duty games for the Nintendo DS and Wii have had their servers shut down, seemingly without warning. Call of Duty is one of the biggest franchises on the planet and it has earned that status without a single title appearing on a Nintendo platform in nearly a full decade. The last game on a Nintendo device was Call of Duty: Ghosts on the Wii U in 2013, despite demands for a Call of Duty on the Nintendo Switch. However, the series has had a semi-active community on the Wii. During the golden age of the series, a number of Call of Duty games were released on the Wii including Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, and Call of Duty: Black Ops.
Sadly, those games will no longer be playable online nor will their Nintendo DS counterparts. Players who try to play these games online are now met with various messages, including a generic one that reads: “Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service for this software has been discontinued.” Some of the other titles have a more personalized message confirming that they’ve shut down and thank players for playing the games. It’s interesting timing as these games are experiencing a major resurgence on Xbox due to the servers being fixed, allowing them to be playable with backward compatibility on modern Xbox consoles. It’s no surprise that the Call of Duty community has likely been dwindling for years on Nintendo platforms, likely prompting Activision to weigh how worthwhile it is to keep operating the servers for those games.
Microsoft has promised to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo platforms when it acquires Activision, though it’s unclear exactly how it plans to do so given how demanding the current titles are. There were already some compromises made on the Wii Call of Duty games and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 never even came to the console. Only time will what comes of Call of Duty on future Nintendo hardware.
Did you play any of the Call of Duty games on the Wii? If so, let me know what you thought of them in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @Cade_Onder.
