Nintendo did not wait for the tenth anniversary of the Wii U to announce the closure of the console’s eShop. According to statements by a former employee of Nintendo America, the manufacturer had to support the product for ten years or risk a class action lawsuit.
Remember, in July 2021, we learned that Nintendo had the ambition to bury the Wii U and the 3DS by permanently closing the eShop of two consoles. The manufacturer had started sending several emails to game development studios to inform them of the situation.
Finally, the ax fell on February 16, 2022. Nintendo formalized the closure of the Wii U and 3DS blinds in March 2023. From this date, players will no longer be able to buy games in dematerialized format on both BigN machines. This end of career will be done gradually, with the impossibility from May 2022 to use his credit card on the eShop of the two consoles, then the deactivation of gift cards from August 29, 2022.
This announcement from Nintendo is perfect for the tenth anniversary of the Wii Uthe hybrid console having debuted in November 2012 in Europe. This date was not chosen at randomas explained by a former employee of Nintendo America to our colleagues on the site Nintendo Life.
Nintendo waited 10 years before throwing out the Wii U to avoid a lawsuit
According to him, Nintendo voluntarily waited for the Wii U to celebrate its tenth birthday before putting it away permanently. And the reason is simply judicial. “Nintendo knows it has to back a product for at least ten years, or risk a class action lawsuit.” He also specifies that the Japanese firm decided several years ago not to support the Wii U in the long term.
“Internally, Nintendo has been waiting for this day since 2014 based on sales […] Nintendo considers the first two years to be the indicator of when to start repackaging a console.” he admits. If we are to believe the source of Nintendo Life, the Japanese company had therefore buried the Wii U in 2014, i.e. just two years after its launch.
It must be said that for the 2013-2014 fiscal year, the manufacturer had revised these sales targets significantly downwards, going from 9 million consoles sold before March 31, 2014 to 2.8 million. An unambiguous admission of failure. After the presentation of the Switch in 2017, the ex-CEO of Nintendo America Reggie Fils Aimé recognized that the failure of the Wii U was a necessary evil to lead to the Switch and the success that we know of.
