Archive link: https://archive.ph/aWo6a

In early April 2024, online play and other functionality that uses online communication will end for Nintendo 3DS* and Wii U software. This also includes online co-operative play, internet rankings, and data distribution.

We will announce a specific end date and time at a later date.

Please note that if an event occurs that would make it difficult to continue online services for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U software, we may have to discontinue services earlier than planned.

  • This includes software exclusive to New Nintendo 3DS
      • This question, I can’t deal with it. It just kills a bit more of hope for the future that people are thinking like this.

        First of all it’s trivial to copy and distribute digital media. There’s no great obstacle that impedes players to run games effectively indefinitely, it’s a matter of unwillingness. The game is not ephemeral, company support is ephemeral.

        Don’t you like the games that you play today? Do you really think nobody will want to play them in the future?

        There are people running Quake 3 Arena servers still today. That’s a game from 1999. That’s not even bringing up how people figured out how to run even older couch multiplayer games online.

        Can you imagine if that was said out of any other medium? “Why not just acknowledge that books are ephemeral?” That would be an outrageous notion and it would be regarded as a massive failure of society towards culture. Yet we have a whole new medium that would be trivial to preserve if not for deliberate obstacles put in the way, and there are people treating it as a lost cause. It boggles my mind!

        •  Kayn   ( @HKayn@dormi.zone ) 
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          21 year ago

          If you think it’s not a lost cause, then tell us what we can do!

          How do we convince politicians to turn this into a law? The same politicians that don’t understand technology and still think that FPS games breed terrorists. Once it’s a law, how do we make sure it’s enforced worldwide?

          Do not lump me in with the consumers that created this future. I am already preserving what I can. I am the weird kid in the corner who advocates for DRM-free games on GOG and gets called crazy for having a 16TB hard drive full of offline backup installers. I legally back up what I can, and obtain what I can’t. I play Warframe and other live service games knowing well that they’ll be gone one day, unless someone manages to hack together a private server. I can’t help but still enjoy some of them.

          Being a hoarder and advocating for game preservation in front of average Joes is thankless and exhausting. I can’t help but stare reality in the face. You seem to know the situation a lot better than me, so tell me, what else should I be doing?

          • so tell me, what else should I be doing?

            Mindset. In a way the defeatism is what allows it to happen as everybody else begins to feel the same way.

            In other words, stay optimistic and speak positively towards your hopes. It’s true that the sad reality is that many people don’t care, but as long as we continue to let corps get away with it and not speak out about our passion for this then the chances of it actually happening dwindle more and more.

            Warframe is popular as hell. It seems likely a game like that will continue. Planetside 2 as well.

            A game like nexons Ghost in the Shell hero shooter, by the book but fun as hell, that game seems like it would be truly gone forever sadly. Except even the likes of Nexon’s rehashing of games gets private server emulation treatments!

            The thing about our work is that we are quite literally going against the massive corporations so a lot of these projects either stay low key or risk getting shut down.

            So yeah, it’s true that not everyone feels how we do. That doesn’t change the fact that if we stop talking about it and doing what we can the corps get exactly what they want and the efforts fade away forever. I think another good example is the ElDewrito Halo 3 rewrite which was effectively Halo PC until MCC finally released. The likelihood of MCC coming to PC was really high already but with all the reception it got over the years I really feel like ElDewrito pushed MCC to fruition sooner

  • Pokemon Bank will still continue to work, but who knows how long that will last.

    It’s devastating news for Pokemon fans looking to legitimately collect every Pokemon. You essentially need online functionality to obtain every Vivillon form in X/Y. Lack of Friend Safaris is also a devastating blow to anyone trying to complete the Pokedex without importing Pokemon from other games. I

    'm going to miss Wonder Trading. That’s how Gen 6 became my most played generation.

  • I think we all knew this was coming when Nintendo discontinued being able to purchase 3DS and Wii U games on the eShop, but it is still very sad to hear.

    Many 3DS and Wii U games have been ported to the Switch over the years, but there will be several games that will likely never get ported because they were incremental series games. Why would they port Super Smash Bros Wii U when they already released Super Smash Bros Ultimate?

    A lot of people will probably not care much being on the newest console, with the newest games, but it is truly sad to know that you will never be able to revisit these games again in a few years when you’re feeling nostalgic, or if you just like the old version better.

    I can only hope that homebrewers figure out how to spoof their own servers to keep online functionally for these old games.