In news that I’m sure at least a handful of people will be excited to hear, Nintendo has announced it’s finally brought online multiplayer functionality back to two of its major first-party WiiU games – Mario Kart 8 and Splatoon.
The company mysteriously took both games offline five months ago in March 2023 for “emergency maintenance” without much explanation or any indication of the length of time that both games would be down for. At the time, it was widely believed that the reason for the sudden shutdown was a security exploit that attackers could use to take over control of a players’ WiiU console and run unauthorised code on it just by playing against them online.
Nintendo has issued a message on its website advising that the games will be back online today, and instructing keen players to update their games before being able to get back into online multiplayer functionality. The company also warns that, should the games need to be taken offline again, it’s not likely that the functionality will ever come back. The full message reads:
In March 2023, Nintendo paused network services for the Wii U games Splatoon and Mario Kart 8 to address a vulnerability related to online play. The issue has now been fixed, and so we will resume online play for these games based on the schedule below. Please accept our sincere apologies for the extended waiting period.
- 3 August 2023 Resume service
- * To resume online play, downloading a new update will be necessary for each title per the release timing noted above.
If further issues occur which make it difficult to continue supporting online play, we may have to discontinue the online play service for the Wii U games Splatoon and Mario Kart 8 at short notice. Should this occur, please note that offline play would continue to function normally.
Thank you for your patience and understanding.
Starting on 03/08, we will be resuming online play for the Wii U games Splatoon and Mario Kart 8. We appreciate your patience during the extended wait.
Learn more: https://t.co/qT1P8iZD5o
— Nintendo UK (@NintendoUK) August 2, 2023
