During the holiday season, we will republish selected features from the last 12 months.A mix of topics, interviews, opinions and more from NL staff and contributorsyou’ll find our usual blend of thoughtfulness, expertise, flirtatiousness, retro nostalgia, and of course enthusiasm for all things Nintendo. Happy Holidays!
Nintendo recently revealed a schedule for shutting down its digital storefront for both the 3DS family of systems and the Wii U. Digital versions of physical releases, digital-only downloadable games, and any form of DLC.you intention You will be able to re-download any purchases made prior to that date (previously purchased original Wii titles will still be available for download on that console).
“This is the way things are done”, “It never lasted forever”, you may think. And most of us can sit back and rationalize it, but yes, of course Digital services have a finite lifespan. clearly Never thought we’d be able to re-download a copy of Crimson Shroud back in the ’90s. Seeing digital store closures happen relatively quickly after these eshops first appeared is a bitter pill to swallow if you’re worried. About saving the game.
Nintendo sees the first two years as an indicator of when to start stuffing consoles.
But the fact of the matter is that Nintendo, and all companies that operate similar stores that sell digital products, are planning this type of controlled closure years in the future.
“Nintendo knows they need to support their products for a minimum of 10 years or they risk some sort of class action lawsuit,” said a former Nintendo America employee. And Nintendo has been eyeing this shutdown for a long time, with a 10-year deadline of November 2022, 10 years after the Wii U’s launch. “Internally, NCL [Nintendo Co. Ltd, the main Japanese company of which NOA is a subsidiary] We’ve been waiting for that day since 2014 based on sales… Nintendo sees the first two years as an indicator of when to start packing into consoles. ”
Failure to concisely demonstrate the benefits and value of the GamePad controller’s asymmetric gameplay, or to successfully differentiate the console from its predecessor in the eyes of the general public, which was a key part of the Wii’s popularity, was a start. By 2014, it was clear that the concept didn’t resonate with mainstream audiences. Our sources say the company quickly turned around and changed its policy internally.
“During the development of NX, there was testing of weird apps that interacted with amiibo and Wii U apps. All busy working to fill the sales void until NX. [Switch’s code name] Arrive. Same thing with the mini-console…a panic product meant to fill his NX gap for Christmas.”
During the development of NX, I saw a series of strange apps testing that interacted with amiibo and Wii U apps.I’m just busy filling the sales void… same goes for mini consoles
Relative commercial failure of Wii U (not 13.56 million units) nonebut only Virtual Boy sold fewer units from that console lineup), causing headaches for the whole company, especially when it comes to repair parts, supply problems early in the console’s lifecycle Did.
“About a year before the launch of the Switch, we started talking about the number of Wii U repairs and replacements,” the source elaborates. “NOA has almost run out of optical drives for their repair/replacement program…so you can see how many are left, like in 2016. to at least make it available for repair, now that the switch is on sale, it’s EOL [End-Of-Life] At least the program for consoles started before the launch of NX. ”
The shutdown plan comes just a few years after the “Wii U Upgrade Program” was rolled out internally, allowing Wii owners to upgrade to new consoles at discounted prices while NOA recycles old consoles. was encouraged.
“In 2013, we were still dealing with Wii repairs, and Nintendo was eating $7 to $10 per repair.There was an employee I met in the spring of 2014, and they were either saving or selling. I was looking for ideas from the inside for ideas.It was around this time that I started to hear an internal joke: ‘If the Wii U were sent for repair, what would you upgrade it to?'”
When asked about how long the full end-of-life process and the ability to redownload previous purchases will apply to the 3DS and Wii U, our source said Nintendo’s official line, “For the foreseeable future.” I’m not optimistic about that timescale compared to . They predict that the service will completely stop within just a few years. “They will tell you in 2023 that the servers will be shut down some time later.” It suggests that online play, re-downloading purchased content, and everything else will die out entirely after this period. I’m here. “If something happens to the Wii U or the drive you’re playing games on, people will 100% lose the game.”
If anything happens to the Wii U or the drive running the game people will lose the game 100%
The Wii hasn’t been Nintendo’s current console for a decade, so it wouldn’t be too surprising if Nintendo quickly shut down its servers for a re-download of that system. However, the Wii U was Nintendo’s primary home platform until the launch of his Switch in March 2017, almost five years ago. So the idea that access to re-download the digital library and play online could be removed as early as he in 2023/2024 is certainly chilling.
We have reached out to Nintendo for comment on the source’s claims and the company’s network plans beyond March 2023. Wii U & Nintendo 3DS eShop end of sale support pageas previously mentioned, said online play, software updates, and the ability to re-download previously purchased content will be maintained “for the time being” after late March 2023.
You will still be able to redownload games and DLC, receive software updates, and enjoy online play on your Wii U and Nintendo 3DS family of systems in the near future.
For online play, it states, “We have no plans to make any further changes at this time.”
“The story I heard was that they would do away with the NNID bolt-on system and only use the Nintendo Account system,” said a former NOA source. In fact, the Nintendo Network ID system seems to have been scrapped for Switch in favor of the new Nintendo Account system (but “at least we’ll be able to integrate wallets/payments and get people involved in the Switch ecosystem. It was intentionally added to the current system, which may be another reason for the company’s swiftness in ditching the previous generation console’s storefront and network.
“They might change their minds about how and if they allowed access to purchased titles, but the system was too confusing to tie into a Nintendo Account. Switch.”
Seeing the relatively long lifespan of the Wii Shop, which is still accessible in 2022 to re-download purchased titles, we speculate that this is simply due to the original Wii’s massive install base, the source confirmed. The Wii Shop was a fairly closed store environment, but the install base is still huge.”
Of course, you can’t redownload these Wii purchases forever, and it’s not unrealistic to imagine Nintendo shutting down all its old networks (Wii, Wii U, 3DS) once and for all. . The company knows better than anyone how the news will make its way to its die-hard fans. From a PR standpoint, it’s better to get it all done at once than presenting multiple targets for negative press or general gamer dissatisfaction.
oh who caresyou might cry— Who’s playing 3DS or Wii U online now anyway? Hmm, maybe there are more than you think. Nintendo Life video producer Jon Cartwright was investigating his online activity on both systems. December 2020on 3DS January 2021 — and found a surprisingly active player base in many online games. Granted, these tests were conducted while much of the world was at home more than usual for pandemic-related reasons , there is clearly a player demand, even if slight, for these services to remain active for as long as possible.
It’s not unrealistic to imagine Nintendo shutting down all its old networks (Wii, Wii U, 3DS) once and for all.The company knows better than anyone how the news will make its way to its die-hard fans.
Ultimately, anyone who stops and considers the economic realities of maintaining servers and devoting resources to networks built for consoles of the past (services only actively used by a small percentage of players) Anybody will see it written on the wall here. Enthusiasts like us, conservationists, or that in five or ten years from now we will explore the libraries of these systems and not have access to them. It’s hardly comfortable for young players just discovering
Many of the big 3DS and Wii U eShop games had physical releases, but not all. Prices for pre-owned 3DS have skyrocketed in recent years, with prices on auction sites reaching spectacular levels. However, if you want something nice and clean, you can expect to pay a few hundred bucks, on the contrary, Wii Us in the wild is less than 14 million of his and includes a copy of Affordable Space Adventures is a much smaller number.subtract from That Calculating the hard drive corruption, failure, and data loss these systems will inevitably experience in the future, you can see why people are so enthusiastic about this topic.
our advice? If you have a hard drive, we recommend backing it up and organizing your personal 3DS/Wii U affairs as much as possible. It’s easy to get up melodramatically with folded arms — and we’re desperate to encourage levelheads and calm conversations — but the clock is perfectly ticking.
