???? – 2013retired
IGoogle
“Your homepage, your rules — the web tidied up, and somehow felt less like home.”
“The little blue light kept working while you slept. Rest now, old friend.”
WiiConnect24, announced at E3 in 2006, let your Wii stay connected to the internet even on standby. It quietly kept your console alive in the background — a friend could send you a message in Animal Crossing: City Folk even when you weren't in the game. For a generation of players, it made the Wii feel less like a machine and more like a presence in the room.
On June 27, 2013, Nintendo shut WiiConnect24 down, taking the Wii channels that depended on it, Wii Message Board exchanges, and passive online features with it. The Wii U never officially supported it, and the defunct channels were removed from the Wii Shop Channel that same day. SpotPass carried similar content-pushing duties for the 3DS and Wii U, but the standby glow of the Wii era ended here.
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“Your homepage, your rules — the web tidied up, and somehow felt less like home.”
“It held the door open to the web for millions, then politely showed itself out.”
“Thinner, lighter, and gone before we got tired of looking at it”