Nintendo Is Ending SplatNet for Splatoon Next Month

Game servers up, all that matters.

Nintendo killing everything WiiU. Servers are to go next.

Not that big of a deal, but sheesh, what's the next thing that'll get pulled at this rate?

Never used it but I visit SplatNet 2 several times a day to check out my stats and new gear.

To be frank, I never knew it was a thing. It would have kept me more active in the community, probably.

I'm more worried about when the Wii Shop will close up. There's still some games I want to get.

Sigh...

This is the trouble with the predominately online only based games. You spend your hard earned cash for a game that become obsolete and unplayable when the publisher decides enoughs enough and switches off the server for that game.
Game then is only destined for the bin as it has no resell value or retro value in later years.

I was thinking the servers will close just as the paid online service arrives.If they want to encourage everyone to upgrade to Switch and its new service,then having a free online service running alongside isn't going to help.Another user was correct in saying the new Pokemon will need online though so surely Nintendo won't cut it off just months after releasing that,that news would go down like a lead balloon.So with the continued success of 3DS,I think the old online service is safe until at least the end of next year.

"follwo"

I missed out on the first game, unfortunately. Bought Mario Maker instead and did not have half as much fun with that as I am now having with Splatoon 2.

Well I'd imagine many long term players who got the most out of Splatoon will have moved over to its sequel; besides at least the online play will still be available.

As they say though, does this mean the server shutdown is just round the corner? Or will it keep running until numbers drop below a certain point?

With all additional content having been free and no DLC to sell there is not so much business sense to keep them going for much longer with the exception of some customer goodwill.

The user-hostile online support for Splatoon, and partially Super Mario Maker, is the reason Nintendo are gradually losing me as a customer. It seems like all their new games are going down this route, and I don't want to take part any more.

The game itself was great fun, but the whole thing felt like an experiment in how far they could push their fans. Ending the Splatfests after less than a year, artificially trickling out DLC, endless connection issues, and now this. The servers will go by the end of the year for sure. So sad.

Nothing to blame here it's totally fine to kill the online part of a game on Wii U if the costs are getting too high and I imagine that the playerbase for Splatoon isn't that high anymore.

It is just how business works.

Let's just hope that the money they save on doing this goes towards Splatoon 2!

How much effort is it to keep this up and running anyway? Just a reminder that the Xbox 360 and PS3 are better supported than the Wii U at this point, and those systems came out a generation before the Wii U...

Kimishima continuing to show he has no idea what customer goodwill is.

@Quirky I think the Splatfests lasted just over a year, but, yeah, I agree with your point. Nintendo's online support doesn't last. Look at Devil's Third, for example.

@MegaTen Well atleast the single player was kinda long and fun, and we have the local two player still

A lot of games get their servers shut down. In the next 4 months: Pro Evolution Soccer 2016, FIFA 14, MLB The Show 15, NBA 2k16, and The Tomorrow Children will be losing their servers. These are PS4 games.

This news is about an app shutting down....so I'm not sure why folks are acting like it's the end times. You can still play the game itself online.

@Octane I'd put Xbox 360 as a higher tier than PS3 because even now things are being done to keep games active like all Halo DLC is free and those games are coming to backwards compatibility later this year even with the existence of Master Chief Collection.

I don't like where this seems to be heading...

The thing that bothers me about Splatoon is all of the weapons, clothes and levels that were added in go to waste when the servers shut. It's the sort of thing that could have been added to the two player mode.

@MegaTen That would be a nice little patch for Wii U Splatoon players as a final goodbye, sticking a bots update in. It won't happen of course, they want us to play the new shiny version...

They're driving a hard bargain if they have similar features in place and active for Splatoon 2.

I didn't even know there was a SplatNet for Splatoon. Seriously - I had no idea. Splatoon 2's version, however, is something I interact with at least once a day. Keeping an eye on all the gear, recieving wallpaper, etc.

@Octane add it to the list of reasons why Nintendo's in last place anymore.

Just keep the servers for the game up please. I may have the sequel (and love it) but I still go back to original very often.

It seems like Nintendo is shutting off the other servers besides the main Nintendo Network to save money. I assume the main servers will stay up until 2018, but they could stay up longer if Nintendo wants to prolong the 3DS's lifespan even more. It doesn't really matter to me, as I never use my Wii U now and my 3DS was only being used for Miiverse, but I hope it stays up for other people who don't want to upgrade to the Switch. Besides, shutting off the servers for Wii U and 3DS would be horrible PR for Nintendo and probably wouldn't convince many people to upgrade.

I read this as in the Splatnet2 servers in the title. I was about to start my day really angry! XD

I was thinking, why would they do this?!

This and Miiverse are only the beginning. All these online games will some day shutdown. Splatoon should have supported bot matches. Let's hope that some people are working on a Wiimfi-like service to keep these games online.

That's not nice for a game which still is available full price in diverse shops.

The Wii U is on it's way out. It's probably a waste of resources to maintain the online services for it. Between it's low sales and the fact that the Switch is out and growing rapidly, I suspect the online player base is rapidly dropping.

I just bought Splatoon a week or so ago and I didn't know SplatNet was a thing. Still good to know that the game servers will remain on (for now).

Oh well... never played Splatoon on Wii U anyways. Loving Splatoon 2 on Switch.

If Microsoft and the like can still have the Halo 3 servers up then Nintendo better well have the Splatoon servers up for years to come. It's basically 80% of the game they charged a premium price for.

How much could this cost Nintendo to keep running? I dunno, it seems like they could easily keep it going until the servers shut down offically. Nintendo has always struggled with maintaining services like this, and this latest example can be thrown on the ever building pile.

Well I've moved onto Splatoon 2 now but won't miss Splatnet.

However, I'm missing a lot of the music from the first Splatoon and also the sound test while you're waiting in the lobby.

"Don't worry, the servers are still up"? Look at Miiverse, then look at this news report. By next year (or even this holiday season) we'll likely see the servers being shut down too. Mark my words, the Wii U was dead, and its servers aren't too far out from there. And this is coming from a huge Wii U fan...

@Octane http://www.ubergizmo.com/2017/04/sony-shuts-down-servers-for-select-playstation-games/.

@gatorboi352 You shouldn't believe everything you read on the Internet.

@NinNin What's the point exactly? They shut down the servers of High Velocity Bowling, a mediocre bowling game from 2007 that nobody even played. A total of four PS3 games I didn't even know about got their online shut down this year, that's more impressive than anything else. And remember, we're talking about a system that launched alongside the Wii, six years before the Wii U.

@Octane The point is that Sony shuts down their servers as well. Kill Strain was released in 2016, and its server has already been shut down. I wouldn't say that it's impressive. Also, according to this article, Nintendo is only going to shut down SplatNet, not the Splatoon's server. How does shutting down game servers equate better support than shutting down a companion website?

Also, read this: https://www.truetrophies.com/forum/viewthread.aspx?tid=5314.

@NinNin It was Miiverse yesterday and SplatNet today. My original point was that it wouldn't take much resources at all to keep at least SplatNet up and running while the Splatoon servers are still live.

What I meant with better support is that one can own a 360 or PS3 and still expect new montly Live Gold and PS+ games, software updates etc. The Wii is dead, and the Wii U is too.

Anyway, the point is that I fail to see why SplatNet needs to go when it was pretty useful for Splatoon (especially since you can't check upcoming maps in-game). The point wasn't to focus on the competition and turn it into some console wars nonsense.

@Octane More than 80 servers of PS3 games were shut down as of 2014. The Xbox Live Gold and PS Plus are paid services. You can't compare them with free services. It isn't about the competition or console wars. When you say something and some people don't agree with you, they may give you another viewpoint. That applies to anything, not just video games.

@NinNin ''More than 80 servers of PS3 games were shut down as of 2014. The Xbox Live Gold and PS Plus are paid services. You can't compare them with free services.''

This is what I was talking about. It isn't another viewpoint, it's moving the discussion away from the original point. It's the ''but they did so and so'' argument. It happens all the time. Dare I say something about PS+, the general response I get is ''but Microsoft does it too'', and whatever response they have for Nintendo.

So yeah, like I said, it would've been nice if SplatNet stayed, since there's no other way of checking upcoming stages in game. So I don't really understand why it gets shut down, it's just a website, and it shouldn't cost that much to run for a company like Nintendo.

@Octane @NinNin PS3 came a year after Wii. This is about splatnet for splatoon on Wii u which is a different console generation to the PS3. I thought Wii u was in the same generation as PS4

@Octane I'm not sure you're trying to say. This is an article about the shutting down of SplatNet. You said this: "Just a reminder that the Xbox 360 and PS3 are better supported than the Wii U at this point."

I don't see how the Xbox Live Gold and PS Plus have anything to do with this. Comparing them with SplatNet is nonsensical. Unless you were being off-topic, I take it that you insinuated that Microsoft and Sony didn't shut down their servers, which is incorrect.

However, if you were being off-topic and wanted to say that the paid services being offered by Microsoft and Sony are better than free services being offered by Nintendo, then I agree with you, but it has nothing to do whatsoever with this article.

@Octane You also need to factor in how often it's used. Since the sequel is out, I doubt it's as used anymore.

@NinNin I was trying to say this:

''So yeah, like I said, it would've been nice if SplatNet stayed, since there's no other way of checking upcoming stages in game. So I don't really understand why it gets shut down, it's just a website, and it shouldn't cost that much to run for a company like Nintendo.''

Guess I'll have to boot up the game to see whether tower control is on or not then. With this and Miiverse in November, it is about time I pick up Splatoon 2.

Sorry but people bought this game and this failed system with their hard earning cash. They should continue to support it for next 10 years at least. How much is the server costs? Counterstrike: Source release date was 2004, and Valve will continue to support it with no extra cash. If Nintendo decide to pull the online plug form Wii U as they did with Wii its greedy move. On this age you alienate your loyal fan base if you provide poor and subpar online support.

These are sad times. I used SplatNet every day for two years, ever since I learned about the Japanese website Summer of 2015, before the English version was launched.

And I'm sad to say Splatoon is a vastly better game than Splatoon 2. The rank system is a joke, Nintendo was spitting in my face and lying that Splatoon 2 is an upgrade, when it is in fact the opposite.

@Laxeybobby I mean there's always private servers for the truly dedicated, but I see what your saying.

This is why I don't trust Nintendo much these days. They are too greedy.

Are there very many people that still play the original Splatoon?

@electrolite77 I mean look at how they have treated us Wii U users since forever. If Switch doesn't sell more than 13 millions history will repeat itself, one of the reasons why I haven't bought one.

To be brutally honest, the original SplatNet service was mostly useless. It certainly doesn't have the utility that SplatNet 2 provides, like buying clothing, checking out match statistics and tracking overall achievement.

I wish they let you boot squid party people and had an AI system for players who drop, like SSB4. If they put more time into doing those things VS Splatnet, we wouldn't be in this situation.

This is why I can't really get into heavy online games. You're basically paying for "games as a service." The day you buy them is the day the clock starts ticking. It ticks on if you have to purchase an online subscription model (which you will have to next year), and it ticks on the game's lifespan itself.

Whether its taking some of the side features away like this, letting exploiters destroy the game, or turning it off completely - it seems like you have to run your life around a timeframe to play before it's not viable anymore. Or playing events at certain times or days.; or to get certain items.

This isn't just Nintendo, this is basically every company. I'm fine with Nintendo putting historically great local multiplayer games online; but this team-based, event-based, time-based crap they can leave behind for all I care.

It uses P2P netcode, or at least Splatoon2 does. All the servers do is matchmaking. This could be handled by a $30 AWS instance. The cost of keeping them up is so little as long as there is a player base they should stay

The closing of SplatNet is a big deal, since we'll now have to spend 3 minutes every time we just want to check what the current ranked mode and stages are, before deciding to play.

The Wii U has no sleep mode like the Switch, where this can be checked in 15 seconds on the console itself, if you have the game running. And we also still have SplatNet 2.

@BraveFencerZan

"A lot of games get their servers shut down. In the next 4 months: Pro Evolution Soccer 2016, FIFA 14, MLB The Show 15, NBA 2k16, and The Tomorrow Children will be losing their servers. These are PS4 games.

This news is about an app shutting down....so I'm not sure why folks are acting like it's the end times. You can still play the game itself online."

@FX102A I think that because of the fact that we have a sequel, a lot of people will be switching over to Splatoon 2. And though there's Nothing wrong with that, since it's on a different console, there will be some people left behind if the servers close. There are kids who's parents can't afford the Nintendo switch. So if/when the servers close, then it would be unfortunate for the people left behind.

I didn't know if your online players came from just Wii U users or a mix of them and Switch ones - like with Mario Kart 8. Sounds worrying if all you have to play against is Wii U owners. Can imagine that's now be a small and ever decreasing circle of people.

@Laxeybobby

This doesn't bother me at all. Did you get your $$ worh out of the game? Did you have fun? How many years did you play it?

If there were to shutdown Splatoon 2 servers now, I have about 170 hours into the game, and have gotten my $$ worth.

I still remember awaiting on a surprising long line at Target one morning for my pre-ordered copy of Splatoon. There were a dozen or so Ebayers/scalpers there to buy some new Amiibos. One after one they left the register without Splatoon to my disbelief. I passed on the then-Target exclusive Jigglypoof; I was just so excited for Splatoon. And indeed, I got way more enjoyment out of Splatoon than I ever would have out of some amiibo.

@Laxeybobby The game is only $60, $45 on sale at walmart... It's not a very big loss at all.

I may not had played the game when it came out or had a Switch at that time but this year's Easter, next weekend's Splatfest and next month's will be good enough to have fun in them