Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection Service for Wii & DS Ending in May

For those of us who haven't yet upgraded to Nintendo's latest consoles, Nintendo has announced we will be unable to play online from May.

The announcement first came from Nintendo of Japan, saying they will discontinue the WiFi Connection Service in May.  Both Nintendo of America and Nintendo of Australia followed with the same announcement, meaning that any game played on the Wii or Nintendo DS will be unable to connect to anything that uses Friend Codes - such as Animal Crossing: Wild World or Super Smash Bros. Melee.  Single-Player content will, of course, still work as normal as will the browsers and shops on each device.  However, the Wii U and 3DS services will remain active for the foreseeable future.

In the Service Update information, they list Examples of Discontinued Functionality:

Examples of Discontinued Functionality:

• Online play and matchmaking
• Leaderboards and tournament data
• Sharing of user generated content (ghost data, user created levels)
• User exchange of in-game items or characters (Global Trade Station)
• Free add-on content or downloads (new levels, in-game items, Mystery Gifts)

Nintendo of Europe has not yet made the same announcement, but it will likely come soon.