The Call of Duty servers for Nintendo Wii and 3DS players have been permanently "discontinued."
As Charlie Intel first reported on August 2, it appeared Call of Duty games on both the Wii and 3DS could no longer be played online. We don't know who was playing games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and World at War on the Wii, but if anyone was, they'll now receive a message saying servers for all Call of Duty games on the Wii and 3DS have been "discontinued" effectively immediately.
UPDATE: Activision tells me that the Nintendo WiFi servers were discontinued and that resulted in older games being unplayable. “The Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service, which provides certain online functionality for many Wii, Nintendo DS, and Nintendo DSi software titles, was…August 3, 2023
There was no warning from Activision or Nintendo that this would be the case, so we can only hope that there weren't too many people playing Call of Duty on the two Nintendo systems that were taken by surprise. We'll hedge our bets here and say that there were probably very few people playing Call of Duty games on the Wii and 3DS in 2023.
- After shutting down the Wii U online services last year, Nintendo asks players not to use "unauthorized services" to replace them as they might pose "security risks"
- Wii U online replacement Pretendo says "we are committed to user safety" as Nintendo warns against using third-party alternatives to its dead servers
"The Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service, which provides certain online functionality for many Wii, Nintendo DS, and Nintendo DSi software titles, was discontinued," an Activision spokesperson told 12DOVE. According to Activision's statement, then, it's a decision from Nintendo that's caused the servers for the Call of Duty games to be taken down for good.
There's more people than you think playing classic Call of Duty games at the moment. Last month in July, the Xbox 360 servers for games like Black Ops and Modern Warfare were suddenly turned back on out of nowhere, which saw a mini revival of sorts for some of the older Call of Duty games on the Xbox console, with players flocking in to relive old memories.
It never was clear why the Call of Duty servers had suddenly come back online. One theory tied it to the Federal Trade Commission losing its bid to block Microsoft's purchase of Activision Blizzard, but there was never any confirmation from either party. If today's news proves one thing, it's that you should revisit older online games while you still can.
Elsewhere, a Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 reveal is imminent for a launch later this year, at least according to what developer Sledgehammer has been teasing.
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