Nintendo Wii and DSi store channels have been down for days and players suspect they have been shut down

According to Eurogamer, the channels of the Nintendo Wii and DSi stores have been closed for several days now. This has led many players to speculate that these two stores may have ended their mission on March 16 as previously stated, but Nintendo has not given any explanation for this.

A video from GameXplain shows what happens when you select the Wii Shop channel. Players are presented with a blank white screen followed by an error code (209601) indicating a network problem. The channel was down on both the first generation Wii and Wii U. Meanwhile, the DSi store spits out error code 290502, also indicating that it cannot connect to the store due to a seemingly non-existent network problem.

Nintendo stopped allowing players to make purchases on the DSi and Wii Shop channels in 2017 and 2019, respectively. However, Nintendo still lets players download previously purchased games from both stores (at least while they are still online). When Nintendo first announced the closure of the Wii Shop, it warned that at some point in the future, players would be prohibited from retrieving or transferring purchased games using the Wii System Transfer tool, but never suggested a fixed date.

This has left some players wondering: Is it time for the previously mentioned time to arrive? It is unclear whether the two stores are closed for maintenance, or if they were accidentally shut down. There was also no response from Nintendo on this issue.