2y ago

Announcement of Discontinuation of Online Services for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U software

en-americas-support.nintendo.com

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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

40 comments

There really should be a law requiring companies which provide online services to be required to release self-hosted server software once they discontinue the provision of the service.
- Why though? Why not just acknowledge that these services are ephemeral?
  
  They don't have to be. 30 year old PC games have their server software bundled with the game; the ephemeral aspect of current online services is entirely artificial.
  
  A few reasons - preservation is one of them
  
  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!
  
  Shin Megami Tensei Imagine online is still going thanks to release of the source. Legends.
  
  Because they shouldn't be...
  I am having the fun of my life still playing DS games online, especially Metroid Prime Hunters and Jump Ultimate Stars.
- IMO we shouldn’t force companies to keep their servers online forever.
  That's not what the person you're replying to suggested though. They suggested that companies should release self-hostable server software when they discontinue providing the service themselves. In the age of containerized software this wouldn't even be all that difficult in many cases
  
  I didn’t say they should keep the servers up forever, I agree that’s unreasonable. But it isn’t unreasonable to require that they release the software necessary for hosting the servers so that the fans/community can host servers if they so choose.
  
  but you can prevent this rug pull situation.
  Seriously this needs to be addressed! Gran Turismo Sport is shutting down in january after, what? 4 years? Insane
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.
- [This comment has been deleted by an automated system]
  
  They are in progress ( pretendo ) still in closed beta.
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.
Guess it's a matter of time before someone creates a mod for the systems to enable online play again
- Is this the kind of thing that RiiConnect24 was for? (just for the original Wii) Or are these online services unrelated
  https://github.com/RiiConnect24
  
  Found it already.. https://pretendo.network
  Online services for 3DS and Wii U
Will this effect something like usbloader?

40 comments