It is today that the eShop of the Wii U and the Nintendo 3DS closes, effectively condemning the two Japanese consoles. With this closure, around 1000 games will disappear from circulation.
It’s a sad day for video game preservation. Nintendo announced the sentence in February 2022, it is effective today. Counting from this day, you will no longer be able to access the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U eShop. In fact, all the games of the two consoles can no longer be purchased in dematerialized format. To recover the nuggets of this era, there is now no other choice but to turn to the second-hand market.
For titles that exist in physical format, the closing of the blinds is already dramatic in itself. But for the many games available only in dematerialized format, it’s a real carnage. According to an estimate from Video Games Chroniclesthese are approximately 1000 games that are simply disappearing from circulation today.
Nintendo 3DS and Wii U are dead, long live Nintendo 3DS and Wii U
Indeed, it is also necessary to count the games available via the Virtual Console of the Wii U and the Nintendo 3DS, which allowed to (re) discover 530 retro games, moreover for free. If the Nintendo Switch also has its own emulators, paid on the other hand, VGC specifies that 335 are not yet offered on these. And there is little chance that the Japanese firm will look into it one day.
Related: Your Wii U Is Probably Already Dead, Here’s Why
It’s a commonplace to say that the video game giants do little to preserve their heritage, but events like those of March 27 are always a blow for fans of the consoles concerned. Unless you have bought at the last moment all the titles released on these consoles, it is over to discover late, at least legally, the games that have made the good times of these consoles.
As a reminder, if you haven’t yet recovered the money stored in your eShop account, you still have one year to merge it with your Nintendo Switch wallet.
