Nintendo Wii U and 3DS E-Shops Shutting Down

[arnoldfranklin]

The Wii U and 3DS E-Shops will shut down in 2023 although you can't add funds in August and you can only make funds with credit cards till May. Be sure if you haven't and if you want to to get Rayman DSIware because that is the only way to get it on 3DS and it is a unique version. Also, there is Rayman for Game Boy Color on 3DS virtual console. I don't have it right now as of speaking but yeah. I don't like that it is shutting down.

[Hunchman801]

That's the biggest problem I have with the digitalisation of games, as inevitable as it is.

[Adsolution]

While inevitable, Nintendo is so notoriously bad at preserving and allowing access to large chunks of their retro library. Every new Nintendo console has its own unique eShop/virtual console for some reason, so the titles don't carry over, meaning that after this shutdown here will be no legal way to obtain or play most of the games on there unless you get the original retro consoles and hardware.

What makes this even worse? The Wii U and 3DS are home to the only remasters of the 3D Zelda games (Ocarina of Time 3D, Majora's Mask 3D, Wind Waker HD, Twilight Princess HD), and while you can buy them digitally on those systems, the physical copies have gotten super expensive online, which shortly will be the only way to play the definitive versions of these games. So not only are they letting their retro library get lost to time, they're doing it with games not even a decade old.

They just announced the original Marjora's Mask for N64 Online on Switch, and it just feels so stupid. I'm glad they're making a renowned title available again of course, but you can sadly rarely ever, ever expect Nintendo to put in more than 1 yen into this sort of thing. How about port OoT 3D and MM 3D to Switch, duh? Nah, really bad emulation is just slightly easier, of course.