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    Nintendo was founded in Kyoto, Japan in 1889 as a manufacturer of hanafuda playing cards. The company went through several small niche businesses before becoming a video game company.

    The Nintendo Wii U and 3DS' eShop are going to shut down by late March 2023

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    gtxforza

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    #1  Edited By gtxforza

    Dear Nintendo fans

    Here is an article that I've found in Nintendo Life:

    Nintendo Is Ending Support For The 3DS & Wii U eShop - Nintendo Life

    This is going to be emotional news for the fans of the Wii U & 3DS but however users can still redownload games and DLCs anytime so if you love to continue to purchase & collect digital games and DLCs, please take your time to buy one by one before they get delisted as the eShop shuts down.

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    chamurai

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    Well, I DO still use my 3DS and haven't bought all the Final Fantasy's from the Virtual Console yet, so, that'll probably get done soon.

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    imhungry

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    It's wholly unsurprising given they've done the exact same thing with past digital storefronts but I would have a lot more sympathy for the considerations that go into a decision like this if not for the fact that a ridiculous amount of regions still don't officially have access to the eShop.

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    warpr

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    The more important date is 23rd May 2022, not March 2023.

    You won't be able to add funds after May 2022, so effectively you won't be able to buy anything after that date (unless you add a bunch of funds before-hand).

    I just purchased Twilight Princess on Wii U, because it doesn't seem to be coming to Switch anytime soon, and I lost my physical (GameCube) copy when I moved to the other side of the world. Physical copies of that are super expensive, so I'm glad the eShop was still working this week :)

    I don't remember Twilight Princess very well, so it's been fun dipping back into that while I'm waiting for some other games to release soon.

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    bigsocrates

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    @warpr: This is incorrect. You won't be able to add funds directly after May 2022 but you can still add funds by adding them to your Switch wallet and, if that's linked to the 3DS and Wii U account, using that money to buy stuff. I don't know if you can create a Nintendo Switch type account without owning a Switch (I think you can through the Internet but I never tried) but since the Switch has sold so many units I doubt there are that many people still actively buying stuff on 3DS or Wii U who don't also have a Switch.

    As for me, personally, I never had a Wii U and while I've toyed with the idea of picking one up it would mostly be for Wii games through HDMI at this point since the vast majority of the games I wanted to play have come to Switch and I suspect the Zelda remakes will make their way over eventually too.

    I don't really even bother looking for stuff to buy on 3DS anymore because I don't like handheld gaming, so this doesn't really affect me too much. I kind of wish the stores were staying up for preservation reasons but at least you'll still be able to download your purchases for the foreseeable future.

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    BisonHero

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    Is there a list of digital titles that were particular to the 3DS or Wii U Shop?

    Most of the big Nintendo-published Wii U stuff has been ported to the Switch (or if it hasn't, will be eventually), so the only digital thing that comes to mind is that it's still the only recent Nintendo console with a significant GBA back catalogue.

    As for the 3DS, it had a lot more unique software that didn't always make it to other platforms due to the dual screen gimmick. Though come to think of it, as much as that was true of the DS, I feel like a lot of 3DS indie games did get ported to consoles/mobile (SteamWorld games, Ace Attorney games got ported to mobile, etc.).

    In closing, everyone go buy and download Pocket Card Jockey on the 3DS eShop; it's the hypest horse training/breeding/racing arcadey solitaire game you'll ever play. It only really came out on the 3DS, unless you want to make a Japanese iOS/Android app store account and speak Japanese.

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    warpr

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    @warpr: This is incorrect. You won't be able to add funds directly after May 2022 but you can still add funds by adding them to your Switch wallet and, if that's linked to the 3DS and Wii U account, using that money to buy stuff.

    Oh, that's good to know. (it doesn't work for me personally, as my Wii U account is USA and I have a European account on the Switch, and I'm not sure you can have both a USA and a European Nintendo account on the same Switch).

    As for me, personally, I never had a Wii U and while I've toyed with the idea of picking one up it would mostly be for Wii games through HDMI at this point since the vast majority of the games I wanted to play have come to Switch and I suspect the Zelda remakes will make their way over eventually too.

    Oh I certainly expect Nintendo to announce Twilight Princess HD within days of me finishing it on Wii U, just to annoy me (it happened with Skyward Sword :). But it hasn't happened so far, and I was just in the mood to revisit this game while I wait for Elden Ring. (I haven't played TP since the original GameCube release).

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    bigsocrates

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    @warpr: From looking at the website it seems like you can make a Nintendo account even if you don't have a Nintendo system, and then if you linked your 3DS and Wii U to it presumably it would work like a normal account and you could add money that way. So I think you could make a USA account without linking it to a Switch and add money, but I'm obviously not sure because it's Nintendo doing online stuff so I obviously don't trust it. Still, if they end up doing some insane blowout digital sale just before the store closes you might be able to add money that way and buy stuff on the cheap.

    I wasn't criticizing you for playing Zelda on the Wii U, of course, I was just saying that I want to play those remasters but I am not going to buy a Wii U just for that purpose because I have a Switch and I think they'll end up there one of these days.

    @bisonhero: I'm sure there's some list of 3DS exclusive software out there somewhere but it's also probably huge. I can think of dozens off the top of my head and considering how many tiny little indie/shovelware games there are on the platform it's probably literally thousands of titles. I wish some of them would be moved over to the Switch in some enhanced format or even just as straight ports. The Switch has a touch screen so that part would be fine in handheld mode and you can split the Switch screen into two parts that are about as big as a non XL 3DS. Obviously the Switch completely dominates the 3DS in terms of hardware capacity, so it seems like it could handle a lot of 3DS titles (Some of which don't even really need 2 screens) but Nintendo just doesn't think that way. Why would Bravely Default fans want to be able to play the previous games in the series on the new hardware? Or Luigi's Mansion fans? Kirby Planet Robobot is widely considered the best in the series but who would want to play that when getting ready for the upcoming big Kirby game?

    Sega was right. Nintendon't do a lot of things they really should.

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