These types of service are being discontinued with the coming new Hokkaido Shinkansen service through the Seikan Tunnel to [near] Hakodate in March, 2016, (and tentatively on to Sapporo in 2030). Testing has been underway for some time on the first section to Hakodate. The tunnel has been dual-gauged to accommodate the Shinkansen. Concerning the sleeper service, it has also been stated that the equipment is getting old, and JR does not wish to replace it.
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The Twilight Express has been cancelled nearly one year ago, on the 12th of March, 2015. Since then the JR West owned trainsets (each containing 8 cars) are being used as a luxury cruise train in the Sanyo and San'in areas and they might be complety withdrawn by the spring of 2016. The remaining Seikan services (Hakucho and Hamanasu) will run on the 21th of March for the last time, while the last Ueno bound Cassiopeia will cross the Tsugaru-strait on the 20th. There will be no train service (freight or passenger) in the Seikan-tunnel between 22th and 25th, and the Hokkaido shinkansen will start on the 26th.
The passenger cars of the Hamanasu and the former Hokutosei were considered as old, the JR Hokkaido also had some incident with these services last year, while they having financial issues as well. So since they are desperately in need of any source of money, of course they want people to use the shinkansen instead of regular limited express or express trains. (Also, the voltage in the Seikan-tunnel will be raised to 25kV, meaning that only, test vehicles (eg. KiYa E193), certain JR Freight locomotives (eg. EH800) and the new H5 series shinkansen will be able to access.)
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Thank you for the additional details; that is good info.
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