Update - 12/09, 03:40 BST: As of 19th September, Bayonetta and Bayonetta 2 will no longer be available for purchase on the Wii U eShop in North America.
And if you've already bought the digital versions of these games on Wii U, Nintendo of America has confirmed you'll still be able to download both of these games after this date (thanks, US Gamer).
Original story - 11/09, 02:10 BST: As of next week, the hack 'n' slash games Bayonetta and Bayonetta 2 can no longer be purchased from the Wii U eShop in Japan and Europe. Here's the official notice from the Nintendo UK website:
Bayonetta and Bayonetta 2 for Wii U will no longer be available to purchase on Nintendo eShop from 23:59 CEST on September 18th, 2019.
Even though the games won't be available for purchase after this date, users who bought digital copies are still expected to be able to download both titles. As sad as it is to see Bayonetta leave the Wii U eShop in certain regions, fortunately, her games will still be available to download on the Switch eShop.
There's been no mention of either game be removed from the Wii U eShop in North America, but we'll let you know if we do hear anything.
[source japanesenintendo.com, via destructoid.com]
Comments 55
Strange. Why bother removing it? I doubt many people are buying much of anything on the Wii U shop these days, but I do find it strange why they would go out of their way to remove it.
Unless they just want to push the Switch version more? If that's the case, why remove it now and not when the Switch version launched?
Makes sense. Nintendo want to slowly kill of Wii U like with 3DS to focus on Switch.
I wonder why this would be? Well, the disc is out there so no big loss. Guess we may never know 🤔 It perplexes me why Ninte do never had any sales on Wii U. Yeah the numbers can't be high on the eShop now but the 360 and PS3 still get killer sales on all manner of titles big and small. Nintendo could have milked the Wii U a bit more the last few years. I would have been happy buying games for 50% off rather than full fat price. It couldn't have cut into Switch sales of Wii U ports in a meaningful way so that excuse shouldn't fly. Oh well, Nintendo be Nintendo
Likely some sort of licensing reason. Each version of a game is a contract/package unto itself. I wonder if other games will follow. Time to stock up on eshop cards...
@Heavyarms55 @TechaNinja It's highly doubtful they're removing Bayonetta to push the Switch, that's going to generate more bad publicity than it helps, cause who's gonna get a Switch just because it's gone from the eshop? Discs still exist anyways. But the games released 5 years prior, nearly to the day (they released September 20th 2014, it's leaving the 18th of 2019), so that's probably how long the licensing deal for the music in the game was.
Well that's strange, not that I care for digital purchases anyway lol. Glad I have both Bayonetta 1 & 2 on disc for Wii U.
We still have physical, which I always prefer first, so it's not really a loss at all
The second they are unavailable from the eShop, my physical launch edition's value will skyrocket. This is why I like physical copies.
I may go back and peruse the wiiu eshop for some virtual concole goodness
This is one of the reason i buy physical editions.
What happends when u do buy it and later delete it? Can you still download it after?
I got the physical not long ago so im good 😀
It's a worrying behavior, and that's why I never buy digitally, except DRM-free from GOG. And now I feel the need to blow the dust off my Bayonetta 1+2 First Print Edition.
@The-Chosen-one Generally speaking, yes. These sorts of things have to do with continued ‘distribution’ of a title; aka new consumers.
@oji GOG.com is awesome! I don't buy anywhere else, on-line. Everything else is still physical for me.
I... can't find any sense in this from Nintendo or Platinum's perspective, as this would in most circumstances just lose both parties money in the long run, so...erm... what's going on??
Meh I couldn't care less about these games being gone from Wii U as we already had good re-released of them and they already had physical copies exist outside the eShop. Still Nintendo need to remastered Fatal Frame IV and V to Switch as those two games has had rough release in the Wii platforms, Fatal Frame IV was only released on Wii and never got out of Japan whereas Fatal Frame V is a digital only game on Wii U. If Nintendo wants, just remastered these along with the Crimson Butterfly remake all for Switch and will gladly throw money at them.
The IP is technically still owned by Sega so they probably had something to do with this decision.
@retro_player_22 I own Fatal Frame 5 on disc. Or to be precise Project Zero 5, so maybe it was exclusive to Europe?
Fatal frame 5 has a physical in europe at least though we call in Project Zero i think. Name is different in all regions for some reason
@Heavyarms55 Licensing is ending.
@countzero Europe and Japan
@TechaNinja, to be honest Nintendo did a pretty good job in killing the WiiU when it was the current machine.
@countzero It was and so does the Crimson Butterfly remake on Wii, Nintendo really screw us when it comes to releasing Fatal Frame in NA. One way or another they really try not to make the game as successful in NA as possible. At this point I rather they sell the franchise rights back to Tecmo even though Tecmo are still technically developing the games. It would be much more widely available had Tecmo got the full rights to Fatal Frame again. I never miss an entry in the franchise and because of Nintendo I missed FFIV.
I have both physical, plus I have them both ripped to my hard drive, so I consider myself 'prepared' for this eventuality.
Why would anybody buy them on Wii U when they can get them on Switch... Lol.
I still buy on Wii U eShop. Not much left on my wishlist, but a couple of things.
As for Bayonetta, I have the discs so I'm happy with those. I also have Bayonetta on PC just incase 😂
I think this may be a music licensing issue.
Quite lucky I’ve got them both on disc.
This is coming at the five year anniversary of the original release, so this has to do with song licensing, and with the Wii U on the out, Nintendo/Sega/Platinum don't care about renewing it.
I got First Print Edition on Wii U with both games on separate physical releases. Limited to 15.300 worldwide.
What's the reason for this? They're both Nintendo-published. Insane.
Ah, no problem, I'm good. Got the Limited Boxed Edition with both games included, so I won't miss the digital versions.
And to me, it seems quite logical in general, that they're slowly emptying out the eShop, much like they did on the Wii and their various handhelds:
You simply don't continue to provide stores with supplies, if the customer base isn't there, and seeing as the Wii U already had few customers to speak off, and most of them have either moved on to other brands or to the Switch, there's little to no reason to keep all these titles up and running there.
And from what I've recently seen, most of what little there is that's still available, is sold for ridiculously low prices, so it's not exactly like the Wii U's eShop is printing money...
I'm sure those two people that still use the Wii-U and don't have the games yet will be crushed.
Cya
Raziel-chan
@Pichuka97 I actually got many games at good discount on the Wii u. Also no the other consoles do not have more deals.
@Blizzia to have them. I have them on both consoles.
@Dirty0814 I'm not saying the Wii U doesn't have sales. I'm sure many games are on sale, usually the same ones, such as Rainbow Snake. But I meant bigger games like Mario U or something. And yeah, the PS3 not so much recently but every week, Microsoft updates the 360 deals section. Even with games that aren't backwards compatible on the One. And when they have a huge Xbox platform sale, they do usually update the 360 storefront page to reflect that
@Lizuka I think you're bang on the money there! Recently they had to remove Fly Me To The Moon from the re-release of Neon Genesis Evangelion on Netflix due to licensing issues.
It's so they can Metroid Prime Trilogy the games so that you actually have a reason to buy them full price on Switch. Clearly!
Seriously though, the Wii gave us three huge games on one disc, yet I don't see that being possible on the Switch's tiny cards.
@PBandSmelly is physical still in print?
Was anyone left who was actually going to buy it on Wii U who hasn’t already?
@Jimez yeah, if it wasn't for Nintendo the Wii U would still be going strong!
Hang on.....
@Razzy Cobalt and Sligeach? They both got banned so we'll never know.
And THIS is why I prefer hard copy games, although it can still be purchased for Switch... but for how long? ⏳
I will have to hug my physical copy and let her know that her digital sisters are leaving.
I don't mind if they won't offer it anymore on WII U.. because that console is dead now. Physical release was still a thing when WII U was released. So many are already on disc. Removing that option sucks for people who still owns a WII U. But if they move it to Switch it might be a good thing. I hope they will port other games as well from the WII U. Super Mario 3D world really should get a Switch release
@AlienX
The absolute maximum a Wii disc could hold was 8.54GB
I still want to know the real reason to why they are removing it!
I sweeped the e shops. If I'm correct, and we get a Shantea collection. I'm good and got everything.
Still need to buy some fire emblem conquest dlc though, so I hope the eshop well last just a year longer...
I didn't even know the first was available digitally on Wii U, I think it was exclusive to the LE print of the second game.
At the least that one should be easily available physically on PS3/360 so it's not like it's completely disappearing.
"While you still can"... Thanks customer base that pushed for digitally sold games. You rule... NOT!
Another perfect example to buy physical. Ok you can download it after the date but then what? You cant get it back if you delete it by mistake or what not.
@Switch-a-Roony No, you can redownload it. You just can't purchase it if you haven't already gotten it.
@link3710 oh ok. But then how long will it be before they pull the plug on redownloads? You essentially rented the game till its support ends digitally 🤔
@Switch-a-Roony When Nintendo closes down the Wii U eShop like they did with the Wii Shop Channel after 12 years (Dec 2006 - Jan 2019) then you can't even re-download already purchased games. From that point onwards you will have to backup your purchased downloads yourself. If you have not re-downloaded all your games by that point that's your money down the drain.
@Switch-a-Roony Yeah, that's true. But how long will physical products remain functioning? Everything has a death date. And you can back up all your games to external hard drives, so it's not like you can't get physical backups in case something happens.
Honestly, I'm someone with an incredibly extensive physical collection, and I'll probably continue to get almost all my games physical, but that's a poor argument. You can back up any digital game you want even past their supports end date. If anything happens to that backup, well, the same thing could have happened to the physical cartridge / disc.
A pity that they remove them. Its always bad to see games go, especially strong ones.
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