Current Events > PSA: 3DS/Wii U online servers are shutting down after today

(+) Yeah! (+)

I've been playing some Smash and MK7 and it's still nice to see a ton of people playing.

So, just the ability to play games online? Are their e-shops already dead?

Does this mean I cant download my previously purchased games? If so fuck Nintendo. There will be some people out there that defend the practice of selling games for full price and removing the ability to download them in the future so you are forced to buy them again.

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

So, just the ability to play games online? Are their e-shops already dead?

Theyve been dead for a year now.

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

So, just the ability to play games online? Are their e-shops already dead?

The eshops died about a year ago. They stopped accepting card info about two years ago.

RetuenOfDevsman posted...

The eshops died about a year ago. They stopped accepting card info about two years ago.

Ah, that's right. Welp. I haven't touched my 3DS in years, WarioWare Gold was the last time. I'll have to boot it up for old times sake.

I backed everything up on Wiiu with multiple back ups. So if something catastrophic happens. I'll have 3 others

I hope they (not Nintendo themselves obviously) preserve Super Mario Maker created levels

Is the reason they can't integrate the stuff in the E-shop for 3DS/Wii U to the Switch e-shop is due to infrastructure reason? I'm not sure how it works.

I'm playing some Smash with a friend, and a bit later, I'm planning on wonder trading off a bunch of shiny breedjects in Ultra Moon. Most of my time on the 3DS was spent breeding shinies in Pokemon, so it feels appropriate to do something with all my extras that didn't get the right natures or abilities~

I tried all weekend and couldn't reliably connect my Wii U.

Womp womp. No more online for me, 4ever
All I wanted was to stock up some more tickets in Xenoblade X.

I tried Smash the other day and could barely find one opponent half the time. Mario Kart 7 still reliably gets races with 4-8 people. There's always a guy in each race who finishes a lap ahead of everyone.

I think you can download stuff even after the games shut down

If you have monster hunter 3 or 4 ultimate, go make sure you have all the event quests downloaded. Those will no longer be available after today

Zikten posted...

I think you can download stuff even after the games shut down

I wouldn't bet on it. I had a few extra HDDs lying around. Not very big ones. All I had was OB64, the AW games, XB1 and Windwaker. With some of those with Switch ports just OB64 is the only only where I cannot play it elsewhere.

Zikten posted...

I think you can download stuff even after the games shut down

nope

Well I have everything I ever bought already downloaded anyway

Zikten posted...

Well I have everything I ever bought already downloaded anyway

same

Smash 3DS activity has been up over the past couple days and I've even encountered people I haven't seen before, and somehow have matched up with at least 2 different people from Venezuela. I've had a bunch of great matches over the past couple days, but still unfortunately encounter people who lag terribly. One person I matched up with on Saturday, we didn't attack each other the whole match, just messed around, broke our own shields, footstooled one another multiple times, just chilling. Then the next couple matches we actually battled and it was really fun.

Prestoff posted...

Is the reason they can't integrate the stuff in the E-shop for 3DS/Wii U to the Switch e-shop is due to infrastructure reason? I'm not sure how it works.

The reason they killed it off is to push Switch sales. Wii U repairs were dropped quickly after the Switch announcement. PS3/360 last until this year and those are from the Wii era. This is just Nintendo being Nintendo.

Pretendo and piracy will save these systems when Nintendo refuses to.

You can still redownload stuff you've purchased before, yes, I did it with Mario Maker not too long ago. Hell, even the Wii still allows this.

https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/57847/~/wii-u-%26-nintendo-3ds-eshop-discontinuation-q%26a

Even after March 27, 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.

That's confusing. It says we can still play online, but nowhere on the page does it mention April 8, 2024.

I didnt know anyone still played online on those consoles. Damn lol.

Zwijn posted...

The reason they killed it off is to push Switch sales. Wii U repairs were dropped quickly after the Switch announcement. PS3/360 last until this year and those are from the Wii era. This is just Nintendo being Nintendo.

Pretendo and piracy will save these systems when Nintendo refuses to.

Damn, I was hoping for a "not predatory" answer.

Zwijn posted...

This is just Nintendo being Nintendo.

Or the WiiU was a failed system, so continuing support for it much longer didn't make sense? This isn't an unusual business practice.

It sucks the WiiU didn't take off, I enjoyed mine for what it was worth, but the writing was on the wall. An argument could be made on how much this actually costs Nintendo to maintain, but it's safe to say their online userbase was practically dead before this.

Not so sure about the 3DS, but I mean...it's a 12 year old system, the last iteration was 10 years ago, and hardware was officially discontinued almost 4 years ago. Not that unusual.

GeminiDeus posted...

https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/57847/~/wii-u-%26-nintendo-3ds-eshop-discontinuation-q%26a

That's confusing. It says we can still play online, but nowhere on the page does it mention April 8, 2024.

That was from before they announced the Wi-Fi shutdown.

-Unowninator- posted...

That was from before they announced the Wi-Fi shutdown.

Yeah, but I figure they should have updated the page by this point.

https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/63227/~/announcement-of-discontinuation-of-online-services-for-nintendo-3ds-and-wii-u

Will it still be possible to download update data or purchased software?
For the foreseeable future, it will still be possible to download update data and redownload purchased software and downloadable content from Nintendo eShop.

You can still download purchased games/content, just services that use communication (ie multiplayer) won't function.

Streetpass will work, Spotpass will not.

Just had 27 matches against the same person, lol. Lasted for almost 2 hours.

Does this mean transfers from Pokemon Bank to Home are dead?

AlCalavicci posted...

Does this mean transfers from Pokemon Bank to Home are dead?

Nope, those are the only exceptions to the shutdown.

-Unowninator- posted...

Nope, those are the only exceptions to the shutdown.

Nice. I wonder if/when that will shut down. I think there's still a trail you can take from FRLG to transfer Pokemon up through Home if you have the right consoles, but once that shuts down, there will be no way to transfer from earlier games.

I did Smash and Mario Kart 7 for a few hours today. In my Smash battles there was usually one guy with 6 or 7 KOs and 0 falls. Mario Kart 7 always had at least one guy with 99,000 rating who finished a lap ahead of everyone.

Can you still play on, like, PS3, 360, etc.? It always just strikes me as odd that when Sony or Microsoft shut down their online play or shops, no one seems to care but when Nintendo does it, suddenly its the end of the world.

Unless Im mistaken and you can still play online or make digital purchases on Sony and Microsofts older consoles

AlCalavicci posted...

Nice. I wonder if/when that will shut down. I think there's still a trail you can take from FRLG to transfer Pokemon up through Home if you have the right consoles, but once that shuts down, there will be no way to transfer from earlier games.

there's always a way........yohohoho......

rexcrk posted...

Can you still play on, like, PS3, 360, etc.? It always just strikes me as odd that when Sony or Microsoft shut down their online play or shops, no one seems to care but when Nintendo does it, suddenly its the end of the world.

Unless Im mistaken and you can still play online or make digital purchases on Sony and Microsofts older consoles

A ton of games from that generation lost multiplayer support when GameSpy shut down 10 years ago.

Splatoon isn't kicking people out if they're still in a lobby playing lol. Watching a stream of people just squid partying every match until the squid cops come and force them out.

RIP

AlCalavicci posted...

Nice. I wonder if/when that will shut down. I think there's still a trail you can take from FRLG to transfer Pokemon up through Home if you have the right consoles, but once that shuts down, there will be no way to transfer from earlier games.

There's a theory it will shut down Dec 31, 2028 because of the daily countdown in Bank. The amount of days left has a question mark in it because it's above the 999 day limit that it can normally read, it's above 1000 right now so people calculated days that it could be and the end of the year makes sense.

Hambo posted...

Splatoon isn't kicking people out if they're still in a lobby playing lol. Watching a stream of people just squid partying every match until the squid cops come and force them out.

Reminds me when some people kept playing Halo 2 for days after its shutdown.

YellowSUV posted...

Reminds me when some people kept playing Halo 2 for days after its shutdown.

All they hafta do is literally never stop playing and then Spoon will never die! It's up to these eight brave warriors.

I was going to stop playing Smash 3DS 40 minutes ago because I still haven't eaten but have still been playing.

It's dead.

It only died a couple of minutes ago on Xenoblade X. It was so lively, and now the game feels dead

Wii U - Less than 12 year old console and online is already dead, meanwhile 18 year old PS3 still kickin'

Nintendo consoles are the shittiest purchases

Heck, I wanted to play Smash 3DS until the servers went down but they're still up. There's a bunch of people on, too. Had tons of great matches. I gotta get something to eat.

https://iili.io/JkNHZhX.jpg

F

Northlane posted...

Wii U - Less than 12 year old console and online is already dead, meanwhile 18 year old PS3 still kickin'

Nintendo consoles are the shittiest purchases

PS3 & PSVita servers were supposed to shutdown, but Sony extended them after enough people complained. Can't be ignored that it's gotten progressively more inconvenient to use them though, such as no longer even being able to make an account directly from the PS3. They'll mostly likely just shut them down more discreetly, when they finally pull the plug

Though really, I don't know where or how people got this absurd mentality that game servers were just going to run forever, especially ones tied to game consoles. The PS2 severs closed, the Xbox servers are gone, the Dreamcast servers ended, & most MMO that don't have private servers are gone. I think Nintendo should strive for a "two generation policy", or 15 years in more definite terms, I just can't understand how so many people are so shocked when a server shuts down, especially for a relative failure like the Wii U.

Yeah honestly XCX servers were completely dead prior to this point, esp cuz the game is mega expensive now, like in the $300s for used.

If anything, the servers shutting down allowed for probably my favorite gaming experience in this year thus far. The hacked unreleased multiplayer lobbies, ppl chilling and partying despite the lack of ability to communicate. It's been giving me a bit of an anime con vibe, and a similar empty feeling coming out of it.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/1/1b11eaa2.jpg

This shit should be a fucking crime.