3 years later, Nintendo pulls the plug on Wii U's TVii service

Nintendo has announced plans to shut down the Wii U's TVii service via a system update on August 11th, just months before the free television-esque video streaming platform would have celebrated its third birthday.

Notable in light of the fact that the TVii service was a cornerstone of the Wii U's bid to compete as an all-in-one living room entertainment box (Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aime described it in 2012 as "probably the most different, non-gaming initiative Nintendo has ever introduced"), the shutdown will quietly take place via system update because Nintendo says "it is time to focus our resources on other projects."

The video-on-demand services through which TVii pulled its programming -- Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Hulu and the like -- will still be usable on the Wii U going forward, and Nintendo has stated it has no plans to replace the service.