This is more Nintendo being short-sighted than being cheap or malicious. The root of the problem is GameSpy and its acquisition in 2012 by a bunch of moneygrubbing jerks known as Glu Mobile. They thought they could blackmail game companies using the GameSpy service by jacking up the prices but their subscribers simply refused to pay and now GameSpy services are shutting down. You can read about it
here and
here.
However, I do blame Nintendo for short-sightedness and seemingly being a generation behind when it comes to features. The problem with Nintendo games versus other affected by the shutdown are the following:
1. The games themselves reference GameSpy servers directly in their coding. This makes migrating official online services an impossible task and not an issue that can be solved by elementary DNS spoofing. I brought up the hacking and reverse engineering communities above, but even if private servers are set up, you need to modify your cart to somehow apply a noSSL patch. As mentioned, the workings are pretty much figured out so the problem is mainly editing software.
2. Going from the above, Nintendo made no allowance for the potential collapse of GameSpy and did not host alternate (read: in-house) online services until the 3DS. They are not assisting fans in any way in figuring out alternative solutions, whereas as you can see in the links I posted other companies are more...collaborative with the fanbase.
There are games taken offline all the time (part of the reason that I don't do console gaming besides the 3DS, gaming should not be a transient experience imo) but at least for the PC, services like GameRanger and Hamachi can help pick up the slack. In conclusion, the problem is decisions Nintendo made in 2003-2005, not in February 2014. But if you don't want to get angry at Nintendo, then send your pitchforks and torches over to Glu Mobile. If it makes anyone feel better, their own tactic backfired on them - they screwed themselves over by losing subscribers due to unscrupulous business practices. Let's hope that going forward, this fate does not befall 3DS and Wii U games when the time comes.
Well thats good to hear. If they manage to get these servers to work, I wonder how easily accessible they will be? Im sure they wont be able to handle nearly as many people playing at the same time as the public servers.
Eh, since they are older games they will likely appeal to niche audiences and won't have a huge amount in the first place. MK and Brawl might have their own stuff in order to handle server loads. Some of them might require some hardware juggling to apply a noSSL patch depending on the game. Sorry I can't be of further help since I'm not part of either of those fandoms, but I've posted as much information as I know.
I actually think it's a bad idea. They could make you pay for it, or worse.
Thank you for your thoughtful and informative post that shows you have no idea what you're talking about. Since, you know, they're skirting legal lines as is and everything is open source ._.