Are games limited to online doomed to fade away?

IGN's latest Nintendo Podcast focused on the news that Nintendo killed off Wi-fi support for the Nintendo Wii and DS. This means that games like Mario Kart DS, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and Mario Kart Wii cannot be played online anymore.

One of the main points discussed in the podcast was the thought of so many games that use online (even games that aren't that old) will lose the online at some point, and there will be no way to play modes completely dedicated to online anymore.

They mentioned that Sony and Microsoft went into the next generation of consoles not even bothering to put backwards compatibility in the PS4 and Xbox One. They bring up that there may be the streaming services like Gaikai that could somehow make it possible to keep some of the online features in tact for some games.

Wii U is the only one of the new consoles that has backwards compatibility. In fact, almost the whole Wii OS is a separate mode on the Wii U. Not everything is there like the weather and news apps, but it's practically the same as turning on the Wii and seeing the menu screen.

Titanfall was brought up in the podcast. They said that in the future, there is a chance that playing Titanfall will be impossible because the online may one day be cut off. This is a scary thought when you realize that Titanfall is solely focused on online multiplayer. Without the online, Titanfall is nothing.

IGN then talked about how many MMOs are dead because the servers for those games were cut off.

We are in an age where online dominates a lot of what we do. Video games are no exception. To think that one day, a game that many people love to play online will no longer be. So many people that grew up with online-focused games may have nothing to go back to and relive great moments from the past. They are forced to stick with only newer games. Sure, some games have offline modes so people can play with friends, but in an age where multiplayer is mostly played online, this will hurt many gamers.

If streaming sevices do find a way to bring back some those online gaming experiences, there may be hope, but with Nintendo killing off Wii and DS Wi-fi, there may be some games that will inevitably be left in the dust.