It is with great remorse and sadness that I confirm today, January 30, 2019, the Wii Shop Channel has closed its doors. Launching less than a month after the Wii’s debut, the channel started small with Virtual Console titles before exploding into one of the more creative digital marketplaces with the introduction of WiiWare. The service had its faults. It used a point system for some silly reason, the way it paid developers was broken and horribly unfair, game sizes were heavily restricted, and for much of its early life, the Wii wouldn’t allow people to save Wii Shop games on an SD card, going so far as to refer to the console as a “refrigerator.”
Despite its problems, the Wii Shop channel was a blessing for somebody like me whose gaming habits didn’t step too far out of their comfort zone. Like Chris Hovermale, this was the service that introduced me to Sin & Punishment. It showed me how diverse and eclectic games can be with titles like Bonsai Barber or Snowpack Park. And it allowed me to play the games I missed out on owning neither a Genesis nor TurboGraphx. For Pete’s sake, this is the service that birthed the Bit.Trip franchise and the Runner trilogy. My gaming repertoire was permanently expanded by the Wii and its Wii Shop Channel, and today I wish it a bittersweet goodbye.
Source: Destructoid These are the last WiiWare games I will ever buy