Wii U and 3DS eShops to shut down in late March 2023

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Nintendo Support: Wii U & Nintendo 3DS eShop Discontinuation Q&A

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As of late March 2023, it will no longer be possible to make purchases in Nintendo eShop for the Wii U system and the Nintendo 3DS family of systems. It will also no longer be possible to download free content, including game demos. Furthermore, as this date draws closer, related services will cease to function:

  • As of May 23, 2022, it will no longer be possible to use a credit card to add funds to an account in Nintendo eShop on Wii U or the Nintendo 3DS family of systems.
  • As of August 29, 2022, it will no longer be possible to use a Nintendo eShop Card to add funds to an account in Nintendo eShop on Wii U or the Nintendo 3DS family of systems. However, it will still be possible to redeem download codes until late March 2023.
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I don't say this lightly but fuck Nintendo. People need to get on their ass just like they did when Sony was going to shut down the PlayStation Store on PS3, PSP, and Vita.

This is awful for game preservation and accessibility.

Also for an extra 'What the Hell is wrong with Nintendo' check out this archived copy of the page with an extra Q&A question that they removed for some reason:

Nintendo Support: Wii U & Nintendo 3DS eShop Discontinuation

web.archive.org web.archive.org
Once it is no longer possible to purchase software in Nintendo eShop on Wii U and the Nintendo 3DS family of systems, many classic games for past platforms will cease to be available for purchase anywhere. Will you make classic games available to own some other way? If not, then why? Doesn't Nintendo have an obligation to preserve its classic games by continually making them available for purchase?
  • Across our Nintendo Switch Online membership plans, over 130 classic games are currently available in growing libraries for various legacy systems. The games are often enhanced with new features such as online play.
  • We think this is an effective way to make classic content easily available to a broad range of players. Within these libraries, new and longtime players can not only find games they remember or have heard about, but other fun games they might not have thought to seek out otherwise.
  • We currently have no plans to offer classic content in other ways.
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Does that mean no more platinum My Nintendo Points upon sign-in every week?
 
Vivica said:
Does that mean no more platinum My Nintendo Points upon sign-in every week?
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You'll still be able to redownload games that you've already purchased after the ability to purchase new games shuts down, so it likely shouldn't effect that since you'll still have to login to the eShop to redownload stuff.

Of course this is just my assumption here and nothing more.
 
Fair.
 
Mcmadness said:
Fair.
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Why do you think that? Fans won't be able to buy games on older consoles, and Nintendo will lose money by not having the games able to be purchased on those consoles. It's a lose-lose.
 
YOU'VE KILLED ME said:
Why do you think that? Fans won't be able to buy games on older consoles, and Nintendo will lose money by not having the games able to be purchased on those consoles. It's a lose-lose.
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Probably because the service is seen as old, not profitable enough, requires too much maintenance for its dwindling payoffs, and ready to move on, to be discontinued. All other services before have shuttered, so I'm not particularly surprised the previous generation's online shops are eventually closing.

But it's galling that current generation Nintendo consoles are still lacking in legacy content, after, what, 5+ years? And that's only for the Switch generation; Nintendo's been like this since legacy gaming's a thing in their consoles. There's also no assurance that anything you get from the NSO subscription is going to transfer to the next Nintendo console either, as that has never been the case since Virtual Console existed (yay spending more money for the same games). Sure, the libraries are getting bigger and bigger, but most games after SNES are going to be out of reach. The N64 games, you say? Pathetic offering. I don't encourage dropping extra money for the NSO's miserable "expansion", even in hopes that it'll get a substantial expansion (history has shown Nintendo always drip feeds games) as that'll only encourage Nintendo to overcharge and exploit customers.

That Nintendo thinks their service is sufficient tells me they're either pretty cynical or seriously out of touch, maybe both. It's hilariously depressing.
 
YOU'VE KILLED ME said:
Why do you think that? Fans won't be able to buy games on older consoles, and Nintendo will lose money by not having the games able to be purchased on those consoles. It's a lose-lose.
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They are paying money to keep those shops running and people have largely moved on from both. Shutting these down really only affects a very small group.

I mean don't get me wrong it would be nice if they could stay up but this is how media, both physical and digital work. Things just stop being made/sold and become collectors/curiosity items.

Or uploaded to the internet.
 
Nintendo really needs to work on actually doing basic decent things like putting digital versions of their games on modern consoles instead of just leaving them to die on consoles no one uses anymore. Just plop some ROMS on the eShop and call it a day. That overpriced flaming pile of shit that is the NSO Expansion Pack is unacceptable. The motherfuckers in charge need to get their shit together because I'm this close to abandoning Nintendo altogether.
 
Mcmadness said:
They are paying money to keep those shops running and people have largely moved on from both. Shutting these down really only affects a very small group.
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People said the same thing when Sony was going to shut down the PSP, PS3, and Vita stores last year and guess what happened? There was enough negative feedback and pushback against Sony's decision that they reversed course and kept the PS3 and Vita stores opened and, while the PSP store itself remains shut down (it shut down in 2016), you can still buy PSP games on the PS3 and Vita stores.

Of course, I don't expect any amount of backlash from Nintendo's decision here to change anything since when does Nintendo ever listen to what the community wants?
 
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Norman Osborn said:
Nintendo really needs to work on actually doing basic decent things like putting digital versions of their games on modern consoles instead of just leaving them to die on consoles no one uses anymore. Just plop some ROMS on the eShop and call it a day. That overpriced flaming pile of shit that is the NSO Expansion Pack is unacceptable. The motherfuckers in charge need to get their shit together because I'm this close to abandoning Nintendo altogether.
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The problem is, they had years to do something about the mess they've created. Well over a decade now, actually. When's the last time most Gamecube games were legally playable and feasibly attainable? Wii's backward compatibility? Hell some games aren't legally playable for decades simply because the Virtual Console libraries were never complete from start to finish.

Raiko Horikawa said:
you know what i realized

the best part of the whole "nso is a good enough replacement" from ninty is that it just... straight up doesn't have the game boy and GBA despite the eshop having those

progress!!!
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The tears of laughter is both from sadness and the utter hilarity they think they consider NSO a good replacement. It's complicated.

Diesel said:
People said the same thing when Sony was going to shut down the PSP, PS3, and Vita stores last year and guess what happened? There was enough negative feedback and pushback against Sony's decision that they reversed course and kept the PS3 and Vita stores opened and, while the PSP store itself remains shut down (it shut down in 2016), you can still buy PSP games on the PS3 and Vita stores.

Of course, I don't expect any amount of backlash from Nintendo's decision here to change anything since when does Nintendo ever listen to what the community wants?
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I mean what's Nintendo's most disliked video, the NSO expansion pack? Is that thing still generating money despite of its unpopularity with the YouTube viewers? What can we even do as a community? Nintendo won't listen. I have no idea if Nintendo has more defenders than any other community, but I feel that's hard to quantify and isn't really relevant as Sony also has its share of defenders too.
 
Diesel said:
People said the same thing when Sony was going to shut down the PSP, PS3, and Vita stores last year and guess what happened? There was enough negative feedback and pushback against Sony's decision that they reversed course and kept the PS3 and Vita stores opened and, while the PSP store itself remains shut down (it shut down in 2016), you can still buy PSP games on the PS3 and Vita stores.

Of course, I don't expect any amount of backlash from Nintendo's decision here to change anything since when does Nintendo ever listen to what the community wants?
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Well I'm pretty sure the vita and psp stores are directly connected with the ps3 due to crossplay but then you forget that the PS3's install base is massive compared to the wii u's.

At best you might be able to save the 3ds store for a while but the wii u? Forget it.
 
I'm sure the Wii's install base was massive too, but that didn't stop Nintendo from shutting that down did it? I can see Nintendo carrying NSO to a new console to a new subscription service where stuff is transferred, but I can also see that not happening and they just restart from scratch and begin the new subscription service with like 3 NES games and they're just Balloon Fighter, Ice Climbers, and Super Mario Bros. Best case scenario is that they entirely rework that subscription service and make it a retro games service with an expansive list of games, and online multiplayer and whatnot is entirely free, though.
 
Striker Mario Boogaloo said:
I can see Nintendo carrying NSO to a new console to a new subscription service where stuff is transferred, but I can also see that not happening and they just restart from scratch and begin the new subscription service with like 3 NES games and they're just Balloon Fighter, Ice Climbers, and Super Mario Bros.
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Hey give a little credit to Urban Champion.
 
Striker Mario Boogaloo said:
I'm sure the Wii's install base was massive too, but that didn't stop Nintendo from shutting that down did it? I can see Nintendo carrying NSO to a new console to a new subscription service where stuff is transferred, but I can also see that not happening and they just restart from scratch and begin the new subscription service with like 3 NES games and they're just Balloon Fighter, Ice Climbers, and Super Mario Bros. Best case scenario is that they entirely rework that subscription service and make it a retro games service with an expansive list of games, and online multiplayer and whatnot is entirely free, though.
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This is why I said this stuff happens eventually no matter what. It's simply the continued cycle. It sucks but thats just how things are.

It's really not screwing over that many people. Hell when this finally gets shutdown entirely the switch will be roughly 5-6 years old so it's not like they kept it running only for a super short time after it launched.
 
Wow, the Wii Shop Channel outlasted the Wii U eshop. I would have expected the 3DS one to last for a bit longer, since at least that was a bit more successful.
 
Watch Nintendo release the next console down the line, you have to rebuy all the games you bought at least 4 times already on eShop and you get dripfed NES games at a premium price to pay for another ongoing perpetual payment model for online.

That's one of the main reasons I'm not buying off eShop. At least the Genesis titles I bought on Steam will be with me forever.
 
god dangit nintendo. honestly
i understand that keeping the shops running costs them money but this is still really dumb with the incredibly limited options nintendo offer for playing old games already (plus were still probably going to lose out on some more obscure eshop titles, which is still not good even if little to no one cares about them)
sure rub salt on the wound too by basically going "lmao we offer games on nso and we have no plans for anything else" when that covers exactly four consoles (and theyre only home consoles and one of them isnt even a nintendo one), with updates being drip-fed to us at agonizingly slow speed, many games still missing, and the n64 emulation being locked behind a big additional paywall + also probably still being a glitchy mess (though its seemingly improved since launch) even though the n64 emulation was perfectly fine on wii/wii u. this is going to be our only remaining option for buying(?) old games on new nintendo consoles legally. sigh
 
absolutely none of this would be an issue if they had bothered to release and maintain a decent emulation service on the switch.

also, for the record: with the closure of the 3DS eShop, DSi games should be no longer legally downloadable from anywhere. not that many people would care about those, but it's still somewhat of a pity.
 
I've been dreading this day ever since I discovered the magic of N64 games on Wii U VC back in the summer of 2019

Better buy everything I might regret not buying (I tried SMB3 on the Switch during my NSO trial but I wanna buy it outright for permanent access, also SMW, maybe some others like I kinda wanna have more than a few N64 and GBA games since those are easy to emulate on basically anything and they're cool) then dump those games and have them all backed up on multiple hard drives to play them on my laptop (or phone/tablet but I don't currently have one that runs Android (Apple is a pain with disallowing emulators) though my new unpatched Switch running Switchroot Android would work).

Same with movies, making secure backups is my best way of being sure I can have something as long as I want, physical media can degrade, be damaged, or get lost easily, and online stuff can be removed from me like Wii U and 3DS eShop just now, and like seasons 2-5 of MLP:FiM on Netflix UK on 1st Feb 2022.
 
As long as they keep the ability to redownload purchased games I'm okay with this, otherwise.. fuck.
 
Fenneko said:
As long as they keep the ability to redownload purchased games I'm okay with this, otherwise.. fuck.
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Afaik, that service is still going to be available

Even after late March 2023, and for the foreseeable future, it will still be possible to redownload games and DLC, receive software updates and enjoy online play on Wii U and the Nintendo 3DS family of systems
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Rarity said:
Better buy everything I might regret not buying (I tried SMB3 on the Switch during my NSO trial but I wanna buy it outright for permanent access, also SMW, maybe some others like I kinda wanna have more than a few N64 and GBA games since those are easy to emulate on basically anything and they're cool) then dump those games and have them all backed up on multiple hard drives to play them on my laptop (or phone/tablet but I don't currently have one that runs Android (Apple is a pain with disallowing emulators) though my new unpatched Switch running Switchroot Android would work).
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I personally wouldn't give Nintendo a dollar or 20 a year for having them propagate FOMO (remember that feeling of "might regret this later for Fear Of missing Out" with Super Mario 3D All Stars?). If you have to jump through hoops for playing these games, which require a jailbroken console and a third-party emulator anyhow (dumping, jailbreaking, and third party emulation, these are all activities Nintendo doesn't like), something on Nintendo's end is seriously wrong.
 
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I mean if you wanna play the Virtual Console games legitimately then mom-and-pop or game reselling stores are your best bet

still, this is stupid
 
as someone with access to said stores, it's viable but they always mark it up to absurd degrees

nothin' like seeing a legit gamecube game labeled at 120 us dollars on a store shelf
 
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