It's the end of an era, as both the Nintendo Wii U and 3DS will be moving on to that great end-of-life cloud in the sky. Nintendo has put out a warning that they'll be winding down support both the eShop on both platforms. Starting May 23 of this year, credit cards will no longer be able to be used to add funds to the 3DS or Wii U eShop, with support for physical eShop cards going away on August 29th. Digital download codes will still work and will be redeemable until the final plug is pulled in March 2023.

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.

Users who link their Nintendo Network ID wallet (used with Wii U and the Nintendo 3DS family of systems) with their Nintendo Account wallet (used with the Nintendo Switch family of systems) can use the shared balance to purchase content on any of these systems until late March 2023. After that, the balance can only be used to purchase content for the Nintendo Switch family of systems.

In an FAQ released alongside the announcement, Nintendo clarified that this will not affect online play, and users will still be able to redownload games they have previously purchased.

If someone visits Nintendo eShop and wants to download something on Wii U or the Nintendo 3DS family systems after late March 2023, what will they able to do?

• On both platforms, users will still be able to:
  • Redownload content they own.
  • Download existing software updates.
• On both platforms, users will not be able to:
  • Purchase any content:
    • On Nintendo 3DS, this includes paid content, plays and passes in software such as StreetPass Mii Plaza, Theme Shop, Nintendo Badge Arcade and Pokémon Bank.
    • On Wii U, this includes passes in software such as Wii Sports Club.
  • Download demos.
  • Download free-to-start software.
  • Redeem a download code.
  • Add funds to their Nintendo eShop balance.
• On Nintendo 3DS family systems, users will still be able to:
  • Download a small number of free themes from Theme Shop.

Nintendo released the 3DS in March 2011, with multiple revisions to the handheld released throughout its lifetime. The Wii U came out in November 2012, and had a short life, being officially discontinued after the launch of the more successful Switch in 2017. The Virtual Console service was well known on either system, where classic games were sold individually, ranging from decades of Nintendo history. Nintendo chose to mention that they currently have no plans to continue the Virtual Console line, and will be focusing support on the Nintendo Switch Online classic library.

Source

 

[64bitmodels]

That's not how copyright owners want or see it. Their vision of going digital is: Stream everything and own nothing.

maybe we should abolish copyright

 

[TomRiddle]

MY idea of a digital future is one where you just buy the games and get the game files with no strings attached
aka GOG

That would be nice but then companies can't resell you the same game 5 times in a row so....

 

[64bitmodels]

That would be nice but then companies can't resell you the same game 5 times in a row so....

they can sell me the DLC they were gonna put in the rereleases :V

 

[Blasingame]

Bring back Free Shop, except as a private server host or something

 

[Kopimist]

MY idea of a digital future is one where you just buy the games and get the game files with no strings attached
aka GOG

I agree 100% with this. DRM free is the best for consumers. Will it likely go in that dorection absolutely not but its an ideal to strive for! I love that GoG is still DRM free to this day.

 

[Bladexdsl]

meanwhile mic and sony FULLY support BC. here's lookin at U nintenDOH

 

[JaNDeRPeiCH]

Multiplayer wifi 3ds games that depend nintendont servers affect the service? im asking because i dont know the situation of the multiplayer games..It will be huge backlash if they shut Mario Kart and pokemon 3ds.

 

[_TheGuy_]

How unfortunate, but we all saw it coming. Just gives more of a reason to hack these systems, and at this point in time it should be fairly easy. The Wii U used to rely on Brain Age to enable CFW on the system, but as of late there's been a new method(Tiramisu) to still work even if the eshop servers close down. Glad we got this in time.

Truly feels like the end of an era. I've had my Wii U since 2014(8th year in April) and had a blast with this system. Playing Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Brothers, Splatoon, Wind Waker HD, and Tropical Freeze in handheld-mode was such a delightful experience. Nintendo's first leap into HD on this not-so-powerful system impressed me. Never gonna forget how much fun I had on the system. Now I'm a grown-ass adult with a Switch and less time to game, but those experiences still stick with me.

 

[Winduss]

I'm worried about Wii U content. As far as I know, the current method for installing Wii U backups relies on Nintendo's CDNs to download the game/update/DLC...

I’m pretty sure that someone will completely download and archive every single game, update and dlc for the Wii U, if they haven’t done that already.

 

[Glyptofane]

meanwhile mic and sony FULLY support BC. here's lookin at U nintenDOH

Well, not quite fully with Sony. Remember when they said PS5 was going to run everything and then ended up only being PS4 with the PSP, PS3, and Vita stores shutting down? Granted, PS3 and Vita ended up remaining open for now. Still, their past and current efforts are far above any attempt ever made by Nintendo which is none at all. Even if you could just buy the VC stuff again, that would be something. Most of it will simply be gone now, with a small trickle continuing temporarily through their lame, ripoff subscription service.

 

[Julie_Pilgrim]

even GOG?

fuck gog, i lost all faith in them after the chinese incident

 

[chrisrlink]

fuck gog, i lost all faith in them after the chinese incident

name one better alternative than piracy...i'm waiting

 

[64bitmodels]

name one better alternative than piracy...i'm waiting

steam

 

[Julie_Pilgrim]

steam

debatable

 

[TonyNESgri]

Will Hshop (3DS) and NUSspli (Wii U) be affected by eshop closure, please no ? If so, what are the alternative solutions to download games then ? I've heard about torrents, but I'm not sure.

 

[HarveyHouston]

Welp, it's official. I recommend to everyone to buy whatever is still in your wishlists now, while the eShops for those platforms are still open.

 

[TheZander]

Welp, it's official. I recommend to everyone to buy whatever is still in your wishlists now, while the eShops for those platforms are still open.

This is good advice

 

[KennyAtom]

Does this suck? Yes. But to be honest, this was inevitable at this point.

Kinda weird how the Wii shop lasted longer than the 3ds shop (13 years vs 12 years), or the Wii U shop (11 years), but you know, what are you going to do about it.

 

[gamesquest1]

I wouldn't be 100% certain about that. Likelihood of missing some tech demos or whatever that's super obscure.

yeah not sure if anyone else had it, I assume it lies on someones 3DS somewhere but there was a demo I think it was the Kingdom of plants one that had been pulled from the eShop and couldn't be redownloaded, it was just a 3D video trailer for a documentary but it was lost for a while with people speculating what the missing titleID was in peoples ticket databases, I did dump it a while ago from a console I fixed for someone and iirc they posted it online after I mentioned that people had been looking for that title, but I got a message again a few months back from someone trying to make a bundle of all the 3D video's for the 3ds but apparently all the links to it were dead, but I couldn't find the cia file I had dumped originally, idk if they managed to find it eventually, but there is always things like that where they are pulled from the store and nobody notices

sure the content is super obscure and pointless in the grand scheme of things, but its never nice having a 99.9% complete collection

 

[Tsukiru]

yeah not sure if anyone else had it, I assume it lies on someones 3DS somewhere but there was a demo I think it was the Kingdom of plants one that had been pulled from the eShop and couldn't be redownloaded, it was just a 3D video trailer for a documentary but it was lost for a while with people speculating what the missing titleID was in peoples ticket databases, I did dump it a while ago from a console I fixed for someone and iirc they posted it online after I mentioned that people had been looking for that title, but I got a message again a few months back from someone trying to make a bundle of all the 3D video's for the 3ds but apparently all the links to it were dead, but I couldn't find the cia file I had dumped originally, idk if they managed to find it eventually, but there is always things like that where they are pulled from the store and nobody notices

sure the content is super obscure and pointless in the grand scheme of things, but its never nice having a 99.9% complete collection

Aw man that especially has to sting when you know there was a chance to recover it.