Nintendo announced they have discontinued both Wii U and 3DS consoles
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Nintendo recently unveiled plans to discontinue online support for both the Wii U and 3DS systems, killing them ultimately.
Unfortunately, fans had seen it coming for some time; Nintendo officially deactivated both consoles’ Nintendo eShop services early this year, and fans scrambled to buy any digital titles they wished they could before disappearing forever.
Nintendo will complete its efforts by discontinuing all online support for Wii U and 3DS consoles, including online multiplayer modes.
In an official statement posted to their official website, Nintendo revealed the news in early April 2024 as they plan on discontinuing any functionality that relies on online communication between games like Nintendo 3DS* and Wii U software, such as online communication play or other forms. This also includes co-operative play and data cooperative, among others.
The date for the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U software shutdown hasn’t yet been set; according to Nintendo’s blog post confirming their imminent shutdown, no definitive date or time frame has yet been given, though in case an event arises that makes maintaining online services challenging we may discontinue services earlier than planned.” This suggests it could come sooner than we anticipated.
As expected, this won’t have any bearing on saved data or owned software, with users still being able to download purchased software from Nintendo eShop as well as download any update data updates for previously bought titles – and, of course, any offline features in games remain undisrupted by this issue.
Now is the time for final reckoning; by April 2024, both Wii U and 3DS will officially be no more.
They had an admirable run, but all good things must come to an end. Fortunately most online multiplayer titles on those systems had already died out, meaning finding matches would likely still have been challenging regardless of any shutdown announcements.
