Nintendo is Shutting Down 3DS and Wii U eShops and Was Weirdly Defensive About It

Remember when Sony was bullied out of shutting down PS3 game purchases? Well, Nintendo is doing the same thing with its 3DS and Wii U eShop content. In March 2023, platform-holders won’t be able to buy new games, put money into their wallets or even redeem codes. And Nintendo doesn’t give a heckin dang about what you think about it. No for real, a part of this news’ Q&A page was so weirdly aggressive and defensive that Nintendo ended up deleting it.

Of course, that’s what archival is for! “Sorry, sorry I’m trying to remove it” really doesn’t work in today’s internet sphere. Screencaps for the question are all over the place, but there’s also a full archive of the page, so you can confirm for yourself it isn’t just some goofy fake trying to stir trouble. Check it out:

Never seen this much disdain in a company’s response to its own Q&A https://t.co/sA7iGdGgbL pic.twitter.com/LyBrrub20I

— AmericanTruckSongs8 (@ethangach) February 16, 2022

The FAQ reads, “Once it is no longer possible to purchase software in Nintendo eShop on Wii U and the Nintendo 3DS family of systems, many classic games for past platforms will cease to be available for purchase anywhere. Will you make classic games available to own some other way? If not, then why? Doesn’t Nintendo have an obligation to preserve its classic games by continually making them available for purchase?”

That last sentence is just incredible. The folks involved totally know that we care about game preservation these days, and they know there’s precedent for discourse and yelling. After all, that’s what happened to Sony. But this rhetorical question comes off as really petty, especially considering the “answer.”

“Across our Nintendo Switch Online membership plans, over 130 classic games are currently available in growing libraries for various legacy systems. The games are often enhanced with new features such as online play.

We think this is an effective way to make classic content easily available to a broad range of players. Within these libraries, new and longtime players can not only find games they remember or have heard about, but other fun games they might not have thought to seek out otherwise.

We currently have no plans to offer classic content in other ways.”

Related: The Emulation in Super Mario 3D All-Stars is Pretty Cool, Actually

Yeah, we know you care about this. And we know it’s kinda bad to do what we’re doing. But it’s happening anyway, and there’s nothing those nerds over at Digital Eclipse and the Video Game History Foundation can do about it. Anyway, give us money for some mediocre N64 emulation! Buy hey, at least you can revisit your previous 3DS memories with a shareable meme!

Wait, I played 3DS for how long???

I wouldn’t be surprised, readers, if people think I’m overreacting here. But it’s pretty obvious this is the kind of takeaway the community got from the question and answer. After all, like we mentioned earlier that part was quickly deleted once the reactions started pouring out. Here’s the page as it stands now, and here’s the archived version. It’s all there in 4K, baby.

My personal take in all this is simple: What the Hell? No seriously, regardless of the drama this was such a bizarre approach to the matter. Getting ahead of bad PR is certainly a common move, but doing it in such a condescending way is like the least Nintendo thing possible. This also follows a strange press release celebrating getting someone distributing hacking devices prison time, so the fringes of the gaming community were already kind of on edge. I’m just kind of bemused at the whole situation.

Related: Interview: EON Gaming Talks Nintendo Switch Online, Official Emulation Woes and HD Retro Gaming

The fact of the matter is this move was inevitable. The 3DS is much older, and the Wii U was a pretty notable flop. Sony is still gonna do the same thing to its PS3 and Vita stores, regardless of the delay. The digital-only path has long-term issues, and we see random delistings for other reasons all the time. And the Wii and PSP stores have already been put to rest at this point. Companies aren’t interested in preserving games without a profit motive. And certainly there is one: Konami and other game publishers have been dropping lots of compilations in recent years, which in a weird way kinda hamstrings Nintendo’s online service offerings. There’s a reason Castlevania isn’t Virtual Console-friendly anymore.

It’s clear that game preservation efforts have three paths. One is relying on official releases, which is obviously the most unstable (but sometimes accidentally amazing) path. There’s what the VGHF is doing, which is largely searching for and preserving things like advertisements, old magazines, demo discs and other parts of game history that aren’t the actual games. And finally, there’s emulation. 

Preserving games is ultimately a community effort. Regardless of your moral stance on Piracy, the only way games will continue being playable well beyond their official availability will be through projects like RPCS3 and Dolphin. Emulator developers aren’t weird criminals trying to make tons of money in the most obtuse way fathomable; they’re fans of gaming too, with the ability and drive to engineer solutions we won’t find anywhere else. And the official releases are also emulation anyway, sometimes the same ones we use:

So if nothing else, Nintendo’s strange lashing out is the loudest signal yet that we need to lower our expectations. The quiet part has been said as loudly as a corporate body can muster. “We don’t care.” I’m not even disparaging Nintendo here; getting mad at it is a waste of energy. Neat, collectible and boutique collections and remasters will still happen, but only for the biggest games or licenses. Everything else is up to the community. So if there are eShop-only games you’re curious about, you have a year left to buy them officially. After that, Nintendo washes its hands and the torch ends up where it always does: in our hands.