Today, April 8th, 2024, at 4PM PT, marks the day in which Nintendo permanently ends support for both the 3DS and the Wii U online services, which include co-op play, internet rankings and data distribution, according to Nintendo's own news post.

This means that games that heavily rely on online services, like the original Super Mario Maker for Wii U (and 3DS), Mario Kart 8 and Splatoon's online multiplayer, and several other games will effectively stop working, more so for Super Mario Maker since that game is entirely relying on online user-created levels for the gaming experience.

However, all is not lost, as the fan and homebrew community is here to save the day (as is always the case), even in the most dire of events like the closure of all online service for said consoles, with the great community network known as Pretendo.

Pretendo is basically an entirely open source project that aims to replace Nintendo's network for both the 3DS and the Wii U, and even their respective emulators like Citra (or its forks given its recent demise) and Cemu, which will allow all users to interconnect with each other even after the demise of Nintendo's own servers later today, and while their compatibility isn't entirely 100%, they developers behind the Pretendo network are still hard at work developing the service so that more and more games get proper compatibility.

Those interested in trying out the Pretendo network can follow their own installation instructions found at their site, which includes installation guides for both Citra (or its forks) and Cemu, and in the case of the original hardware, the user will require a hacked console, be it a hacked 3DS and/or a hacked Wii U, depending on which console the user has. Just be aware that your current Nintendo ID (and everything that it entices, like friends list and other things) will not be carried over to the Pretendo servers, as Nintendo's servers hold that data, and repurposing the original ID for Pretendo could pose a severe privacy violation, so a new ID will need to be created for usage with Pretendo's servers.

A recommendation for a more detailed look into the Pretendo network is a recently released video by renowned game developer and homebrew enthusiast, Modern Vintage Gamer (MVG), gives takes a deeper dive into it, as well as its current status, usage, game tests and installation of the fanmade network into your own consoles.

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Source
Pretendo Network

 

[Khentendo]

Gonna throw some oil on the fire and confirm this guy is a dick from a firsthand experience. When I asked if I could dump packets without modding my system, he was in chat telling me "no, mod your crap".

He isn't the only one, but it wasn't exactly a warm welcome.

Sorry bout that.

 

[Surdo123]

Yes pretendo network wiiu online

 

[OggleTorpp]

So it's free but they're censoring people.
Well I guess is not that different from Nintendo's own servers then, but paying to be unbanned is just bs tbh.

Paid to get unbanned is good, i got a switch banned from nintendo and they don't offerd me the option to paid to get unbanned, well, not tru, yes you can paid to get unbanned, the price of new consol... that what it cos to me!.. lol

 

[BeanMKW]

man pretendo added minecraft to production servers but didnt activate public games cause of RCE. like man you should have just said play at your own risk instead of shutting out an entire section of the game. if you could get RCE'd on NN, why does it matter now?

 

[chazdoesstuff]

From doing some research, Pretendo can also use NNIDs if they wanted to, but to their own admission they dont want to because they "dont have the energy", so created fake IDs instead which could result in ur wii u getting bricked if you try and transfer saves between IDs... I brought this up and the Head Pretendo Guy just made walls of text going over what isnt possible and effectively saying all the pre-existing projects by fans for NNIDs were non-viable despite being almost perfect for the job, he then locked the thread...

Anyway, until a day comes when I can use my NNID to minimize the risk of my Wii U getting fucked, Pretendo wont be for me, on another note, just found out that the Wii U and 3DS eshops are actually quite easy to revive, considering most of the eshop's stuff has been backed up on github and IA, and new tools have been made that connect to Nintendos servers to get the games just like the Eshops would of, unlike the Wii eshop, the Wii U and 3DS eshops seem really easy to revive since most of the pieces required are already here, and just need to be put together like in a puzzle.

 

[raxadian]

The Wii U literally gets bricked by not plugging it in for a while, if you want to blame someone blame Nintendo.

 

[chazdoesstuff]

Ik, I'm not blaming them, I'm just saying it's a PITA to make a fake ID when with enough effort/research they COULD use NNIDs

 

[NinStar]

Anyway, until a day comes when I can use my NNID to minimize the risk of my Wii U getting fucked, Pretendo wont be for me, on another note, just found out that the Wii U and 3DS eshops are actually quite easy to revive, considering most of the eshop's stuff has been backed up on github and IA, and new tools have been made that connect to Nintendos servers to get the games just like the Eshops would of, unlike the Wii eshop, the Wii U and 3DS eshops seem really easy to revive since most of the pieces required are already here, and just need to be put together like in a puzzle.

While indeed most of the eShop is preserved on the Internet Archive, they don't have unlimited bandwidth and are at serious risk of losing everything because of their dispute with book publishers, so those things alone make it unviable.

 

[chazdoesstuff]

While indeed most of the eShop is preserved on the Internet Archive, they don't have unlimited bandwidth and are at serious risk of losing everything because of their dispute with book publishers, so those things alone make it unviable.

Most of it is on github, IA only has a small portion TMK. There's all the necessary stuff on github alone to fix the eshop.

 

[NinStar]

Most of it is on github, IA only has a small portion TMK. There's all the necessary stuff on github alone to fix the eshop.

By most of the eShop I was referring to its content, which is mostly archived on Internet Archive, definitely not on GitHub. Also, what exactly do you mean by "fix the eShop"? The official one is still there, other than nothing being able to buy new games and DLCs it is totally functional, the main concern most people have is that their CDN may go away at any moment in the future.

 

[chazdoesstuff]

No there are tools like WiiUDownloader and Nusspi (or something) that can still get the games off the eshop servers

 

[NinStar]

No there are tools like WiiUDownloader and Nusspi (or something) that can still get the games off the eshop servers

Yes, that's because the CDN is still there as I mentioned in my post. Yoiu can also go to the eShop right now and download anything you already purchased.

 

[chazdoesstuff]

So (at least for now) could we jam those tools into the eshop so it can connect to the CDN and purchase new games again?

 

[RedDucks]

From doing some research

This "research" amounts to "just ignore authentication and assume any non-PNID is a NNID and let it through". This was literally the diagram you proposed on the GitHub issue:

> Surely it is possible for Pretendo to do a simple account check where it looks at the user, sees their id, checks if it's a PNID, which it then goes through all the normal processes, and if it isnt registered as a PNID, then it assumes its an NNID and lets the user access the content?

This is obviously not a system that actually works, and it breaks down even further when you consider that it's just a username check. Meaning if a NNID and PNID are both registered, it would have no idea WHICH is actually being used

but to their own admission they dont want to because they "dont have the energy"

That's not at all what was said. What I said was that it's not something we will put energy into. That's 2 completely different sentences

so created fake IDs instead

As I said on GitHub, these are not "fake IDs". They are accounts on *our* service. There's nothing "fake" about them?

which could result in ur wii u getting bricked if you try and transfer saves between IDs

There have literally been 0 cases of a full console brick happening due to game save transfers. Homebrew apps for transfering saves have existed for years, and unless you're messing with critical system titles (which don't even have per-user saves anyway), even a failed save transfer won't brick your console. It would just be a failed save transfer. People have completed full *system* transfers before without bricking. And if a brick *did* happen from a save transfer, that's the fault of whatever tool you used/user error, not us

I brought this up and the Head Pretendo Guy just made walls of text going over what isnt possible

You got "walls of text" because you were wrong and there's multiple systems that would break down if things were done the way you suggested (which again, was "completely ignore authentication")

Here's a link to the "walls of text", explaining why this system is not viable https://github.com/PretendoNetwork/account/issues/115

effectively saying all the pre-existing projects by fans for NNIDs were non-viable despite being almost perfect for the job

This is, again, not what I said. I mentioned a single project by name, rverse (since it relied on NNIDs), and what I said was that even they did not do REAL authentication with NNIDs. The account server Nintendo uses issues what's called a "service token" to 3rd party services. Miiverse is one of those services. Nintendo's service tokens are encrypted, but have static regions that *are* unique to each NNID. What projects like rverse do is "claim" accounts by assigning a username to that static region. That is NOT the same thing as actual account authentication, rverse had no access to your actual account data. All you did was tell rverse what your NNID username was and it assumed this to be true, you could have put anything there. The tokens rverse used are, again, encrypted and no real useful information can be obtained from them due to not being able to decrypt them, and the tokens cannot be used in any other API endpoints on NNAS to get further account information. Nintendo likely had some sort of internal mechanism for getting this data, it's not something exposed on any public API in NNAS. This is, again, obviously not a system that actually works

he then locked the thread

I locked it because it was clear you weren't actually listening to reason as to why this isn't viable, and I wasn't going to spend days going back and forth talking to essentially a brick wall. Your thread was literally the first one I've ever locked. NNIDs are a totally separate account system which we do not control

 

[chazdoesstuff]

This "research" amounts to "just ignore authentication and assume any non-PNID is a NNID and let it through". This was literally the diagram you proposed on the GitHub issue:

> Surely it is possible for Pretendo to do a simple account check where it looks at the user, sees their id, checks if it's a PNID, which it then goes through all the normal processes, and if it isnt registered as a PNID, then it assumes its an NNID and lets the user access the content?

View attachment 459057

This is obviously not a system that actually works, and it breaks down even further when you consider that it's just a username check. Meaning if a NNID and PNID are both registered, it would have no idea WHICH is actually being used



That's not at all what was said. What I said was that it's not something we will put energy into. That's 2 completely different sentences



As I said on GitHub, these are not "fake IDs". They are accounts on *our* service. There's nothing "fake" about them?



There have literally been 0 cases of a full console brick happening due to game save transfers. Homebrew apps for transfering saves have existed for years, and unless you're messing with critical system titles (which don't even have per-user saves anyway), even a failed save transfer won't brick your console. It would just be a failed save transfer. People have completed full *system* transfers before without bricking. And if a brick *did* happen from a save transfer, that's the fault of whatever tool you used/user error, not us



You got "walls of text" because you were wrong and there's multiple systems that would break down if things were done the way you suggested (which again, was "completely ignore authentication")

Here's a link to the "walls of text", explaining why this system is not viable https://github.com/PretendoNetwork/account/issues/115



This is, again, not what I said. I mentioned a single project by name, rverse (since it relied on NNIDs), and what I said was that even they did not do REAL authentication with NNIDs. The account server Nintendo uses issues what's called a "service token" to 3rd party services. Miiverse is one of those services. Nintendo's service tokens are encrypted, but have static regions that *are* unique to each NNID. What projects like rverse do is "claim" accounts by assigning a username to that static region. That is NOT the same thing as actual account authentication, rverse had no access to your actual account data. All you did was tell rverse what your NNID username was and it assumed this to be true, you could have put anything there. The tokens rverse used are, again, encrypted and no real useful information can be obtained from them due to not being able to decrypt them, and the tokens cannot be used in any other API endpoints on NNAS to get further account information. Nintendo likely had some sort of internal mechanism for getting this data, it's not something exposed on any public API in NNAS. This is, again, obviously not a system that actually works



I locked it because it was clear you weren't actually listening to reason as to why this isn't viable, and I wasn't going to spend days going back and forth talking to essentially a brick wall. Your thread was literally the first one I've ever locked. NNIDs are a totally separate account system which we do not control

I did go on to say that I realised that my og idea was a bad idea, my point is that this HAS been done before, and as I've said multiple times, I know it's a pain in the ass, ik as you've said, you don't have the energy for it, fair enough, I'm not debating that. I'm only debating the notion that it is impossible, whether any previous or current method/system/suggestion that me or anyone else has suggested is viable, it doesn't mean that the core fundamental concepts are impossible, if enough people felt like seeing if they could do it and tried, it could be done well within our lifetime.


Anyway, I've moved on from that conversation, and talking with some others about eshop stuff etc, I'd appreciate if you moved on from this as well.

 

[RedDucks]

I did go on to say that I realised that my og idea was a bad idea, my point is that this HAS been done before, and as I've said multiple times, I know it's a pain in the ass, ik as you've said, you don't have the energy for it, fair enough, I'm not debating that. I'm only debating the notion that it is impossible, whether any previous or current method/system/suggestion that me or anyone else has suggested is viable, it doesn't mean that the core fundamental concepts are impossible, if enough people felt like seeing if they could do it and tried, it could be done well within our lifetime.


Anyway, I've moved on from that conversation, and talking with some others about eshop stuff etc, I'd appreciate if you moved on from this as well.

I’ve personally moved on, as with the locking of the thread. My reply was to correct your misrepresentation of what happened, which you have continued to do (for the final time, it’s not “we don’t have the energy” or “it’s too hard”, it’s not viable and it’s not something worth putting energy into. These are 2 different sentences)

And no, again, for the last time: this has NOT “been done before”. I need you to grasp the fact that the scope of what we do is vastly different, and what you THINK has been done before has not and is not a viable solution to what you want

I have not stated any new information, I’ve only corrected your misrepresentation of events since you painted a very different picture to that of what actually happened

 

[chazdoesstuff]

I’ve personally moved on, as with the locking of the thread. My reply was to correct your misrepresentation of what happened, which you have continued to do (for the final time, it’s not “we don’t have the energy” or “it’s too hard”, it’s not viable and it’s not something worth putting energy into. These are 2 different sentences)

And no, again, for the last time: this has NOT “been done before”. I need you to grasp the fact that the scope of what we do is vastly different, and what you THINK has been done before has not and is not a viable solution to what you want

I have not stated any new information, I’ve only corrected your misrepresentation of events since you painted a very different picture to that of what actually happened

"it’s not something worth putting energy into" so you don't have energy allocated for it, that's what I mean by "you dont have the energy for it"

I've not said that using NNIDs with a fake network has been done before, but there's been multiple projects about NNIDs done before, whether they work with what we've discusses is another thing but they are still good examples relating to the topic.

As for misrepresentation... saying NNID stuff has been done before when they have, and saying that it is possible when it is possible, and saying you locked the thread when you did... there's nothing misrepresenting about that, that's just what happened.

I'll say this for the last time, I don't care if you aren't doing it, that's not what I'm debating, I'm debating the notion of it being impossible, now can we please go back to before it got flooded with an argument that not alot of people in the thread actually care about.

 

[RedDucks]

"it’s not something worth putting energy into" so you don't have energy allocated for it, that's what I mean by "you dont have the energy for it"

No, these are different things and it's astonishing that you don't understand that even after having it explained to you multiple times. You are literally changing what I said into a different sentence. You are literally doing this

Not wanting to put energy into something, not thinking something is worth the energy, etc. is not the same thing as "not having energy allocated for it". That's just an entirely different sentence. I'm struggling to understand how you don't understand this? You do understand that someone can have the capacity for something and still not do it, do you not?

I've not said that using NNIDs with a fake network has been done before

I really don't understand where you obsession with the word "fake" is coming from. There is nothing "fake" about any of this. It's a replacement service

but there's been multiple projects about NNIDs done before, whether they work with what we've discusses is another thing but they are still good examples relating to the topic.

They're not good examples, because of what I've already described. Multiple times. They don't relate to the topic, because they don't actually provide anything meaningful to it. You cannot provide a single project which was fully authenticated, secure, and had access to all relevant user data that you would need to operate something like Pretendo, while using NNIDs as the authentication mechanism. I'm not saying you have to find an example of a project like Pretendo, a full network replacement. But anything that actually does REAL, proper, authentication and gains access to the relevant user data from NNIDs, while still being securely implemented. You can't, because that doesn't exist. Because it's not viable, as I've already said multiple times now

As for misrepresentation... saying NNID stuff has been done before when they have, and saying that it is possible when it is possible, and saying you locked the thread when you did... there's nothing misrepresenting about that, that's just what happened.

You misrepresented the conversation on the GitHub issue greatly. Which is why I chimed in, to correct your misrepresentation of what happened. You can clearly see that by the numerous corrections I made to what you said

I'll say this for the last time, I don't care if you aren't doing it, that's not what I'm debating, I'm debating the notion of it being impossible, now can we please go back to before it got flooded with an argument that not alot of people in the thread actually care about.

You can drop this and go back to it any time. I'm not debating anything with you either. As I said, all I did was correct your numerous misrepresentations of what actually happened, and presented the REAL reasons as to why the idea was shot down, since you did not do so in an accurate way. I'm not debating anything about the topic further, I've said that multiple times now and it's why I locked the thread. All I'm doing now is correcting you, which yes I will continue to do so if you continue to misrepresent things

 

[chazdoesstuff]

No, these are different things and it's astonishing that you don't understand that even after having it explained to you multiple times. You are literally changing what I said into a different sentence. You are literally doing this

View attachment 459271

Not wanting to put energy into something, not thinking something is worth the energy, etc. is not the same thing as "not having energy allocated for it". That's just an entirely different sentence. I'm struggling to understand how you don't understand this? You do understand that someone can have the capacity for something and still not do it, do you not?



I really don't understand where you obsession with the word "fake" is coming from. There is nothing "fake" about any of this. It's a replacement service



They're not good examples, because of what I've already described. Multiple times. They don't relate to the topic, because they don't actually provide anything meaningful to it. You cannot provide a single project which was fully authenticated, secure, and had access to all relevant user data that you would need to operate something like Pretendo, while using NNIDs as the authentication mechanism. I'm not saying you have to find an example of a project like Pretendo, a full network replacement. But anything that actually does REAL, proper, authentication and gains access to the relevant user data from NNIDs, while still being securely implemented. You can't, because that doesn't exist. Because it's not viable, as I've already said multiple times now



You misrepresented the conversation on the GitHub issue greatly. Which is why I chimed in, to correct your misrepresentation of what happened. You can clearly see that by the numerous corrections I made to what you said



You can drop this and go back to it any time. I'm not debating anything with you either. As I said, all I did was correct your numerous misrepresentations of what actually happened, and presented the REAL reasons as to why the idea was shot down, since you did not do so in an accurate way. I'm not debating anything about the topic further, I've said that multiple times now and it's why I locked the thread. All I'm doing now is correcting you, which yes I will continue to do so if you continue to misrepresent things

That's a wild comparison that me saying "you dont have energy for it because you dont believe it to be worth the energy and therefore havent decided to allocate energy for it" is the same as someone else saying "because you like this you clearly hate this", come on...

As for my usage of the word fake, think of NN and Pretendo as 2 Pokèmon Emerald cartridges, they are both pretty much exactly the same in terms of appearance and the game itself, however one wasn't made by Nintendo and was made by someone else, and because of that alot of stuff like the legality of the Pokèmon isn't there, along with tradeability and other stuff not working or being missing, the connotations of replacement is that you've removed one broken object and added an exact copy of that object, Pretendo is not that, it's not an upgrade as it is currently unfinished with no extra features of any significance, infact you have to start from a blank state, unless you use savemii which risks bricking your console, a fake/counterfeit is the only thing you could somewhat accurately describe a PNID as, since it is too early to be considered and upgrade and too limited to be considered a formidable replacement, it's still good don't get me wrong, this descriptor mostly just covers PNIDs, I'm just explaining the use of the word fake.

I did not (at least not intentionally) misrepresent the conversation, what I said happened did happen, if you don't like the way I'm putting it, well sorry for being blunt in my mannerisms or whatever the correct term is. Either way, I didn't misrepresent anything but if you still think I did then at least you have the satisfaction of knowing that it wasn't intentional

Anyway, this idea was shot down because you believe it to be non-viable, which you have a case for and I'm not debating that, with you not believing it to be worth the energy and therefore aren't putting energy into it to allocate said energy into fully developing Pretendo, fair enough, I'm just debating the implication that this is some sort of forbidden/impossible challenge that can never be done when it is quite possible and is feasible that we will see this relatively soon (I bet at most a decade and a bit). We can agree to disagree and call it a day but I would again like to move on from this as this is now just a repeating circle of arsing about with one another with you misunderstanding what I mean and myself misunderstanding some projects relating to NNIDs, either way, let's move on. Don't flood the thread

 

[RedDucks]

That's a wild comparison that me saying "you dont have energy for it because you dont believe it to be worth the energy and therefore havent decided to allocate energy for it" is the same as someone else saying "because you like this you clearly hate this", come on...

I can't tell if you're being intentionally dense or not. What I said was that you changed my sentence into a totally different sentence. Which is exactly what happened. Which is what that Tweet also demonstrated, as a cheeky example/comparison. The changing of someone's words into something else entirely, which IS what you did. There is a vast difference between "having the capacity and not doing", and "not having the capacity", and I struggle to understand how you do not see that difference

As for my usage of the word fake, think of NN and Pretendo as 2 Pokèmon Emerald cartridges, they are both pretty much exactly the same in terms of appearance and the game itself, however one wasn't made by Nintendo and was made by someone else, and because of that alot of stuff like the legality of the Pokèmon isn't there, along with tradeability and other stuff not working or being missing, the connotations of replacement is that you've removed one broken object and added an exact copy of that object, Pretendo is not that, it's not an upgrade as it is currently unfinished with no extra features of any significance, infact you have to start from a blank state, unless you use savemii which risks bricking your console, a fake/counterfeit is the only thing you could somewhat accurately describe a PNID as, since it is too early to be considered and upgrade and too limited to be considered a formidable replacement, it's still good don't get me wrong, this descriptor mostly just covers PNIDs, I'm just explaining the use of the word fake.

This is just a completely incorrect and asinine interpretation of things. These are not comparable at all. (you're also just wrong, we do have extra features, and even your example of Pokemon games is wrong. Counterfeit Emerald carts can, indeed, trade with each other. I literally own several gen 3 counterfeit carts, and have traded between them)

Also I say again, SaveMii is not a brick risk and in all my time in the scene I have seen 0 reported cases of a full system brick from using it, while seeing many tens of thousands of people use it with no issue. I have no idea where you got this idea from that you're somehow going to destroy your system from moving a game save

I did not (at least not intentionally) misrepresent the conversation, what I said happened did happen, if you don't like the way I'm putting it, well sorry for being blunt in my mannerisms or whatever the correct term is. Either way, I didn't misrepresent anything but if you still think I did then at least you have the satisfaction of knowing that it wasn't intentional

Except that you did, intentionally or not, misrepresent several points. Which is exactly what I corrected in my original message. Did you fail to read anything I've said previously? I very clearly laid out the exact points you misrepresented, with their corrections. You aren't being blunt. You're being straight up incorrect. And that brings no one any satisfaction

Anyway, this idea was shot down because you believe it to be non-viable, which you have a case for and I'm not debating that, with you not believing it to be worth the energy and therefore aren't putting energy into it to allocate said energy into fully developing Pretendo, fair enough, I'm just debating the implication that this is some sort of forbidden/impossible challenge that can never be done when it is quite possible and is feasible that we will see this relatively soon (I bet at most a decade and a bit). We can agree to disagree and call it a day but I would again like to move on from this as this is now just a repeating circle of arsing about with one another with you misunderstanding what I mean and myself misunderstanding some projects relating to NNIDs, either way, let's move on

I will say again for the last time, no one said it was a "forbidden/impossible challenge that can never be done". What I said is that there's no viable way to do this in a secure way and without causing significant bloat to other systems for realistically 0 real benefit. The FAQ on our website literally says this (which, again, I had already pointed out to you):

No one has ever said this was "impossible". Please learn the difference. I have already told you exactly why this doesn't work the way you want it to, multiple times now, with all the reasons, and I even explained on the GitHub issue exactly what it WOULD take to accomplish this and why it's still a bad idea, which is why we won't be putting energy into it. If you refuse to actually read any of that and understand why, then that's on you. I'm not debating that any further either. But you consistently insist on misquoting and misrepresenting what was said, which is what is leading to these corrections

This also isn't a matter of "fully developing Pretendo". Just because something doesn't work the way you want it to does not make it a "missing feature". Sorry, but that's just not how this works. Just because you personally think a feature should exist does not suddenly make it a "missing feature" counting towards something being "not fully developed", that's once again completely asinine

I have no misunderstanding of what you mean. I know full well what you mean, what you want, and how you think these things work. And what I'm telling you is that you're wrong, on all points, and are refusing to listen to reason. You seem to be the one who has no real idea as to how these things work, and you seem to be adamant about not fully reading/comprehending the reasons as to why there is no real path forward to do this efficiently and securely

Don't flood the thread

I will continue to "flood the thread" so long as you still need correcting on the matter. Also, this thread is about Pretendo. If you're going to be wrong about what we've said about our development plans, then correcting those mistakes is perfectly within the bounds of the thread's topic. If anything, you tangenting off to talk about the eShop the way you did is "flooding the thread" as it has really nothing to do with Pretendo. As I've said, so long as you say things which need correcting, I have full intentions of coming back and correcting them