The online shops for the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DSi have been offline for several days now, with no word on when they’ll be back up and functioning.
First spotted by NintendoEverything, it looks like the Wii Shop is not working as it’s supposed to. When users boot it up, they’re greeted with a blank white screen. GameXplain posted a video testing the Wii Shop on the Wii U console. After waiting for a minute or so, they’re then given an error code 209601 notification. This specific error means that the user’s personal connection is being interfered with and is not allowing them to connect to the shop. However, the issue is widespread, even being experienced by users in Europe and Canada, indicating that the outage is on Nintendo’s side.
So far, Nintendo hasn’t responded to this problem yet, and there’s currently no timeline as to when the Wii Shop will be restored, if at all. We’ve reached out to Nintendo for comment and will provide an update if we hear back.
Nintendo officially shut down the Wii Shop in 2019, removing the ability to make new purchases. However, users could still download existing purchases. This error now doesn’t allow for users to do even that, since they cannot access the store at all.
Nintendo is also shutting down the 3DS and Wii U eShop stores in March 2023. Additionally, on May 23 this year, users will no longer be able to add funds via credit card to their store accounts. On August 29, prepaid eShop cards will cease function too.
