Nintendo’s Wii shop down and out, but you can still get your fix of its music with this Chrome extension

It’s unlikely that many of you reading this have an original Nintendo Wii, but on the off chance that you do, the store on these devices and on the Nintendo DSi have mysteriously been out of service for days already leaving gamers wondering if they’re shutting down since that’s Nintendo’s favorite new way to preserve gaming history as of late (insert sarcasm). With that in mind, I figured today gives me the perfect excuse to talk about a cool Chrome extension I’ve had my eye on lately.

I’m always on the lookout for interesting extensions to modify my browsing experience, and Wii Shop Channel Music by Corbin Davenport, an Android Police alumni fits that description perfectly. Corbin has created an extension that detects when you’re shopping or browsing merchant websites, and when you are, it automatically plays one of ten Nintendo sounds, mostly from the various eShops across each generation like the Wii, Wii U, 3DS, and Nintendo DSi.

There’s a volume slider that allows you to turn the nostalgic feels down a bit if it’s too distracting, but honestly, the following songs, including one from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time’s shop are just so darn replayable that I don’t mind having them on loop as I work.

• Wii Shop Channel
• Wii Shop Channel (Menu)
• Mii Channel (Wii)
• Mii Maker (3DS)
• Wii U eShop
• 3DS eShop
• DSi Shop
• Wii Shop Wednesday
• Ocarina Of Time Shop
• The Sims Buy Mode

Because the extension requests permission to check when a tab is active, you’ll notice that the music stops if you switch away from said tab to browse something else, but restarts immediate when you return. Minimizing your Amazon or Google Play Store page does keep the music playing though.

While searching and installing Wii Shop Music extension for Chrome, you’re going to want to make sure you snatch Corbin’s instead of the one offered by Nioxed (I repeat, don’t install this one!)since the former has Google’s extension seal of approval showing that he respects your privacy, while the latter has not provided Google information on how it will collect or use your data – yikes!