At the end of last year, Nintendo revealed that 2024 would mark the end of online play for both the Nintendo 3DS and the Nintendo Wii U. Now, the clock is ticking, as Nintendo has specified an exact end date to the online services for both systems. You have until April 8th, at 4pm PDT to get around to playing any old favorites online, before they're gone for good. Leaderboards, online play, and all other services that use the internet on either the 3DS and Wii U will no longer function after that deadline.

There is a single exception to the shutdown, with Pokemon Bank and Pokemon Transporter still staying up and usable, as Nintendo deems both software to be still relevant for fans importing their old Pokemon into new games.

For those looking to get some online play in after it's all over, both the Citra 3DS and Cemu Wii U emulators have their own form of custom servers that allow for online play.

Update: as of 4/8, online play and other functionality that uses online communication will end service for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U software. Thank you very much for your continued support of our products.

Find out more: https://t.co/VdIdewGmB5

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) January 24, 2024

 

[Kwyjor]

Those servers are paid for by game freak, and they don't run "other" software on them. Do remember that those servers are virtual ones in a data center somewhere, not physically distinct machines sitting in an office somewhere.
Chances are the pokemon bank and home servers specifically run on hardware that's also running other pokemon related crap, and thus can just stay running without any further considerations.

That's speculative. Wouldn't it make more sense if the Pokemon Bank servers were running on the same hardware as the servers for all the other 3DS/WiiU games? Do we know that Game Freak is paying some kind of annual fee for the upkeep?

There is a huge difference between servers for one or two apps, or for a few dozen. The extra cost would be a bit more than a few pennies.

My point is that there's a much, much bigger difference between running a server for one or two apps and not running servers at all.

 

[LokeYourLord]

That's speculative.

It's really not as a matter of fact. I now do Server Management (DevOps) and Cyber Security daily as my job, and also have plenty of experience in the category of self-hosting and years of Networking experience under my belt, and so on. I can tell you from experience that these servers cost absolutely ZILCH to host, especially for a company such as Nintendo, and could EASILY be hosted in a very cheap or practically no-cost environment and within containers that are then within existing infrastructure without much of a hassle to them. It's just Nintendo not wanting to pay the few cents it would cost to give their players a good experience, that's what it is, merely just penny pinching.

Oh and if they really wanted to, they could easily just take their current systems, put them into a Virtual Machine, LXC, Docker container, Kubernetes Cluster, etc. and host it like I said on existing infrastructure without any further issues. It's just that they simply don't want to because they're misers.

 

[BeniBel]

You think the 3DS uses that much memory or power? Especially with such a small user base? I got news for you bud, it ain't that deep. Nintendo could afford to keep the servers up indefinitely with a few thousand dollars.

It's not just the size, it also needs maintenance and moderation. All in, it's just not worth the trouble, especially for such a small user base.

 

[Kwyjor]

Oh and if they really wanted to, they could easily just take their current systems, put them into a Virtual Machine, LXC, Docker container, Kubernetes Cluster, etc. and host it like I said on existing infrastructure without any further issues. It's just that they simply don't want to because they're misers.

On the other hand, what if their current systems are horrendously out of date and incompatible with such solutions? There was a big story about that a few years ago.
https://mspoweruser.com/nintendo-replacing-nex-multiplayer-system-servers/

 

[Deleted member 194275]

there are a lot of people theorizing about poke bank and poke transporter, but please take into consideration on your super advanced theories that the pokemon company already asked players to transfer everything as soon as possible.

There is no official end date for those services, but they will die soon for sure. My guess is that as soon as they make old pokemon games available on nintendo switch online, they will pull the plug.

 

[Delerious]

this should be nintendos MOTTO: we'll support you until we don't fucking feel like it anymore!

I mean... it's kind of the nature of, not just consoles, but games in general. Realistically, do either of these consoles have any more than 0.01% of their original user base using online services anymore? I somehow doubt it at this point. So what incentive is there to maintain those services in the eyes of any business?

 

[PacBunnyXV07]

Now how is someone supposed to unlock Challenge 044 in Super Smash Bros for 3DS...

 

[Xdqwerty]

Will NNIDs still work?

 

[depaul]

Time to backup everything

 

[Flame]

How many people officially confirmed the switch 2 in this thread?

 

[Kwyjor]

So what incentive is there to maintain those services in the eyes of any business?

Because it looks good? It keeps people talking about the services and may provide further incentive for people to buy their products?

Now how is someone supposed to unlock Challenge 044 in Super Smash Bros for 3DS...

Use a "hammer"? Very forward-thinking, those hammers, though of course the first instinct is to never, ever use them. (There should have been a means of obtaining extra hammers rather than making them limited-use.)

Time to backup everything

At this point it's more about analyzing network traffic and reverse-engineering than it is about "backing up everything".

Although that does raise the question about whether there's something that can be done about Badge Arcade. Is it possible to manually swap out one's own Badge Arcade data without CFW, or does the 3DS detect such manipulation?

 

[DJPlace]

i was expecting mid/end of April but i guess i was wrong...

 

[Ampersound]

I'm not ready for online to shut down.
Still wanted to start playing Monster Hunter 4U, maybe in a few months, or something..
Never got to start since it's scary to start such a huge game.

 

[Metoroid0]

ohhh end it already, im getting tired of hearing about this.

 

[chrisrlink]

sure hope pretendo captured enough 3ds data for Pokemon I wuld hate if gen 6/7 doesn't get implemented in ttime

 

[Kioku]

Americans: April 8th
Europeans: the 8th of April

Just how we speak, ya dig?

Why we gotta be difficult is beyond me…

 

[assassinz]

So April 8 2024 ay

I'm not ready for online to shut down.
Still wanted to start playing Monster Hunter 4U, maybe in a few months, or something..
Never got to start since it's scary to start such a huge game.

Why wait? Just start it now.

 

[CoolKid575]

This really sucks, but the clock has been ticking since the eShop shut down. I'm honestly surprised that the servers have lasted this long. The Wii/DS servers shut down real quick in comparison after their consoles went into EOL.

 

[Gon Freecss]

If you want to help out Pretendo, you can make network dumps for games that use Nintendo Network: https://pretendo.network/docs/network-dumps

I think it could be helpful if people could video the gaming session when capturing packets & sent a YouTube video along with the captured data to Pretendo developers, that way they would get a better insight about what happened in the in-game session.

 

[tk9]

This is straight up sad bro. Our older half-brother in Germany who just got into 3DS won't be able to play with us anymore soon. He just got his 3DS too.