Nintendo To Shutdown "Limited" Wii U And 3DS eShops In Select Countries

...It's gonna be scary when they shut down the Wii U eShop globally. There are so many virtual console games that may never end up on Switch and it could be the last chance we have to play them by legitimate means.

Oh dear...

Won't be long before they shut down the rest as well now.
THIS is why I try to avoid buying games digitally on Nintendo platforms. They are so way behind the curve on this.

I wonder what's the reason behind it? It doesn't seem to be much harm to close down specific functions. I feel it has more to do with some other reason involved but unsaid, especially since it's in only occurring in a specific area of the world.

I think we're still far and away either of these shops closing for good. Both of these shops are much bigger and more often visited than the DSi and even the Wii shop were, given their diversity in the offerings of games you can download and how much consumers are more accustomed to downloading games. If the Wii Shop lasted 12 years, then I expect the more download reliant 3DS and Wii U to last just as long, if not longer.

How would this affect stuff like pokebank bychance?

Not exactly sure what "limited" eshop refers to.

Puerto Rico is not going to be affected because they have access to the North America eshop.

I set my 3DS eshop region = USA, Georgia.
Oh, dear....
It's already the time for 3DS eshop extinction....

Oh my. Well, nothing for NA yet. Though I fear the time comes soon.

Uh no...

I don't like this at all.

Eventually, if my main 3DS carks it, I won't even be able to transfer all the data to one of my other consoles (and the accompanying update data for certain games).

I made backups of my games a few years ago because I saw this happening sooner rather than later. I know it’s not exactly official but I just like having the safety to fall back on in case my SD decides to cark it.

I assume we're almost at the end if an era especially when the Wii U began to flop and continues to be. The 3DS better stay until those that can move on to the Switch. The 3DS and Wii U had its run in the spotlight for a number of years. And now more than ever, the Switch I believe will stick around for more than 10 years

It's the beginning of the 3DS shutter. They're going to do it slowly like this and then announce the discontinuation of consoles then eventually all online services.

@ivory_soul I’m afraid your right.

Say..anyone think we’ll get some quality titles on eshop Thursdays before it’s totally discontinued??

@nessisonett every game must be signed by nintendo. In 3DS case you can only backup game for main console (paired with Nintendo Account), if you have spare hardware for future use (like me) - it means so you'll lost all digital content in case lost/malfunction of main console. For me its a VERY big problem because I have big collection of 3DS consoles (9 pcs)

I'm not a fan of home brew, or hacking, but this is why I don't have a problem with people that are.

@NicolausCamp any platform not just Nintendo. Digital is not the way to buy any games. It is a rental.

No... Nintendo why? It's far too early for this!

3ds can save everything on a PC as backup. Of needed you can put it on a card and update the it as needed.

The 3DS and Wii U eShops in those regions are basically zombie shops as they have zero games and essentially exist solely to redeem game codes, so I'm not surprised this is happening. In fact, I'm a bit shocked it didn't happen sooner with the Wii U eShop given that it has sold almost nothing in those regions.

With that being said, I expect the Wii U eShop to be discontinued in full across the world by the end of 2021. The same will probably happen with the 3DS eShop 2-3 years after that.

Their response would be something like:

"we hope you understand"

Oh good, not México, phew.

@westman98 If they do, I will not be happy. I don't have the SD cards for that kind of shutdown. I'm still mercilessly kicking myself for missing the Wii Shop closure.

@mobor Well, I turned my installed games and cartridges into CIA files. This way, I can install them myself on my console if needed and just have the games on my Dropbox.

@ChrisDono you know, that very well could be it. Maybe not, maybe yes.

But at least for the moment most regions have eshop.

Well at least so far this doesn't include america. It may be time to start thinking about modding my Wii U and 3DS.

Don't fret, every 3ds and Wii U game is backed up, we good. It's just now time to boot9strap your 3ds and Haxchi your Wii U. Nintendo games don't and won't die anytime soon.

This is why I buy 1-2 Wii u digital games per month so i won't have to do it all at one time. Usually they're VC, but I might be snagging a few Wii games as well.

From the sounds of it these places never had a full eShop to begin with, and for such a small market it makes sense to shut it down

I only have a Switch but I'm from one of those countries with limited eshops
All physical games are imported so it's way cheaper to pick up digitally so this is kinda scary
Oh well, I hope that by the time the Switch eshop is down, bigger SDs are cheaper so I can keep everything in just one card and never remove it from the Switch again to not lose it

@AxeltheBuizel

I support that’s true. Why run a huge profit loss?? But there might be a few disappointed fans in “these particular” countries.

Nintendo to 3DS & Wii U owners who can't afford a Switch:

Disgusting practice from Nintendo. This should be illegal. Many games require updates just to run properly nowadays. After this date, no funtioning game for you if you didn't already download updates. And people wonder why a few of us on here make such big deals about games needing Day 1 patches and so on.

I've never heard of these "limited eshops", and don't understand what they are.

This worries me. Is it easy to make backups of digital 3DS and Wii U games? I already have a memory card in my 3DS and an external harddrive hooked up to my Wii U - csn I just copy those files onto another harddrive?

@Dirty0814 This particular issue is worse with Nintendo.

MS realised that the way they set up their original xbox was flawed, so fixed it for xbox 360. This eventually resulted in that original service being shutdown.

It appears Sony saw this and set up a service that can be maintained. And we see both the 360 and PS3 services still working, and actually integrated in to current gen (you can actually buy OG and 360 games on xbox, and you can still browse PSP, PSV, and PS3 games through the same browser as you do PS4 games).

Nintendo however don't learn from their competitors. That's why even their Switch service here in 2020 lacks some features that are considered basic on other platforms. It's also why, despite seeing MS tackle this issue between 2004 and 2006, they released one service in 2007, then another service in 2012, then another service in 2017. And each one of those launched with digital games being tied to the console rather than account. It took them 12 years to catch up to that.

Essentially, Sony and MS reached their Steam like service a long time ago. A service that will be ongoing across many systems. Since the Switch online is new with the Switch, we can't be sure Nintendo has created that service yet.

Glad I'm close to the end of my 3DS and Wii U wishlist.

The bigger stuff I still need to grab on the 3DS is A-Train 3D and the DLC for New Super Mario Bros. 2. And over on the Wii U, the DLC for Pikmin 3 and Breath of the Wild.

There's also a handful of favorites left that I'd like to download off the Virtual Console, but they're low priority with me owning them in their original form. I only wanted them on handheld or in the case of the Wii U VC downloads left, for a nicer picture on my HDTV.

@Sinton I'm wondering the same thing, I really need my 3DS backed up, I have almost 200 downloaded games on it

@Richnj however game are removed from newer systems and remastered etc. It doesn't matter how many games convert over when many don't and your forced to buy a remastered or new copy or no choice to buy it at all. This is something that still goes on. The PS4 only ported over a small amount of ps3 games. MS has been the dominant one in this field but still only allow a small amount of games on the One.
Digital doesn't last and the chances of you being able to keep it is small. Xbox says the series X will be completely backwards compatible but the digital aspect of this is still yet to be seen. The PS5 will fail miserably in this aspect as well as it's backwards compatibility has been the worst of all of them. The only company that has been successful is steam but that is PC not console.
Digital is nothing but a rental service. Your not guaranteed anything and I don't expect that to change anytime soon and you never actually own anything with it. This is why I keep all my systems and keep them cleaned and in operating condition and storage backed up on my PC for all of them. This is also why I buy physical for any game if I can over digital even games I buy digital and like I'll double dip and purchase the physical if there is one.

They are able to do this, but bring more games to NINTENDO ONLINE? No way!!!

Looks like I have to flip my 3DS switch from the default 'Piracy is theft' seeing to the 'Piracy is Preservation' setting.

Everyone in affected areas need to download Pocket Card Jockey immediately.

Just for clarity, the eShop in these countries is basically only free demos and a code redemption page. It literally has nothing and most bundled games are US region coded.

I think the recent case of Nintendo Accounts getting compromised via NNID sped up Nintendo's plan to discontinue the 3DS and Wii U eshops.

@The-Chosen-one And some people are going to use Homebrew (because you didn't provide a PC-OS friendly file system). Nintendo thanks for understanding and sorry for any inconvenience caused 😋😋😋😛

I´m surprised they aren´t shutting down the Brazillian one as well since we have almost no Nintendo content in here, the Brazillian Switch Eshop is limited as hell and the Switch isn´t even officially sold here.

Wish the wii shop was still open 😣

Hmm well I guess I’ll start working on buying wiiu games for a bit. There are a few eshop games i still want. I know this is just the smaller shops but to me it signals the beginning of the end in a few years.

And stuff like this is why i would rather have a physical game. They can't switch that off

No sweat. Should my 3DS and/or Wii ever fail on me - which eventually will do - I'll get a new one and pirate the hell out of it.

I'm not a piracy supporter (well, not anymore), mind you; it's still sickeningly early to kill off what's still essentially a potential source of revenue. I mean, the Xbox 360 - a Wii contemporary - still has an online storefront.

But I'll leave it to y'all to sing the praises of the physical-only way, I guess it can't be helped this one time.

@BlackenedHalo
Don't say that out loud, or someone will get the impression you're blasphemously implying this is Nintendo's fault. Everyone here knows the digital format is the devil incarnate, and that indies should only release games in physical format despite self-publishing in physical being pretty much impossible without the occasional help from publisher like Limited Run.

@H4ppyZer0
Wow. And here I was complaining about Brawl's release date some time ago. Really sorry (no sarcasm here) for you guys out there.

@mobor I am in a similar situation to you of having spare 3DS, but you beat my 3 . I just wondered if backing up the actuals 3DS sd card in case of 3DS error is a waste of time then? I am not doing homebrew or anything, I perhaps intend to move to a spare 3DS via transfer if another C-nub breaks down or something. I also wonder if transfer of 3DS to 3DS will work if they close eshop globally? Not sure if it does check the account on line or if its off-line.

Your backup SDcard will work only with main 3DS. This is only solution in case of sd-card malfunction. If you want to move with your collection to another 3DS, you'll have to move entire license from one console to another. To do so, you'll have to connect to Nintendo servers..but they'll be turned off

Unfortunately it’s the beginning of the end for 3ds and Wii u downloads unknown they will close them all one day. Download what u got too. Wii u has pc engine games who knows if a nintendo console will have that again. Last games I downloaded were those gba castlevania games. I think I’m good I got all I want, stay safe x x x c c c

I knew this day would come...this is officially the beginning of the end, once Nintendo announce the discontinuation of 3DS eShops in certain regions then the rest of the world will follow, Japan Europe and the US being the last ones standing.
I very recently transferred my 3DSXL to a New 3DSXL (due to the screen hinge being broken) it took 24 hours (all wireless, NNID and SD transfers as well as all my software) but I have zero regrets and love my 3DS even more😍🎮.
As long as Nintendo continues the online support for 3DS for another 10 years then I'll be happy🤞🏾🤞🏾🤞🏾

You see this is what I'm always afraid of This is why I will never support digital games from Nintendo especially if you read their DRM policy You don't own anything It's like you're basically renting a game and they can easily revoke your license and there's no refund This is why I purposely purchase everything physically from Nintendo because I'll still be able to play them as much as I want to digital games it has always been a scam if you don't believe me go read Nintendo's DRM policy including Xbox and PlayStation You don't own anything if your account is banned everything you just bought digitally will be revoked and taken away from you in matter of seconds This is why I purchase everything in physical form I understand buying things digitally makes life easier but you are risking the cost of losing access to stuff you bought with your own money And it seems Nintendo doesn't give a damn if people lose their eShop stuff The only thing I ever purchase from the Wii U and 3DS eShop is strictly downloadable content not games I specifically get the physical copy And I will continue to support physical medias for as long as I live all this nonsense about the physical spectrum is dead you are wrong there are still millions of people out there that still support physical medias and they will continue for as long as they live which is why I'm always purchasing everything from Nintendo Xbox and PlayStation with physical copies of the game and believe me I take care of them like as if they are my biological babies I know that sounds weird but it's the perfect analogy 😉👍 I still have physical games dating back as far as 1996 😍 And they are still in 100% perfect condition I don't let them gather dust or keep them in game cases I have a CD holder for that very reason which holds up to 1,000 CDs 😍 at this point I already have 900 CDs ranging from Xbox PlayStation and Nintendo I do have other physical holders for my Nintendo switch and 3DS including my PS Vita slim that can hold up to 1,000😍👍 physical will always be better than digital no matter how convenient digital is 😎👍

@sandman89 Yeah, I wish the Wii shop was still open. Had a great selection in virtual console games and I missed a couple of WiiWare titles before it closed.

I've recently been buying games for my Wii U virtual console but guess I need to consider the 3DS eShop too. The closure doesn't affect me yet but we all know it's around the corner.

I see this as the equivalent to the Wii shop not accepting points anymore, I think it will be a few more years until they fully shutdown the 3DS and Wii shops.

@Dirty0814 The problem is, even physical games won't work one day when the servers shut down. Games that require an update to work probably won't be able to download said update if the servers are closed off.

@wazlon yeah I’ve done the same 😫 I hope they don’t close the wiiu and 3ds ones completely I’ve been playing both a lot lately

You know I just booted up my 3ds yesterday too look at the eshop to see what I need to fill out my 3ds collection. This is a console I will hopefully still be playing 20yrs from now. So many great games only on that system or would play best on that system even if rereleased. Zelda a link between time and Mario 3d land are two games that come to mind that I had physically but either lost or sold a while ago that I need to get back digitally before it’s too late.

Of course they constantly re-evaluate their business and make decisions based on a variety of factors. ¥¥¥ mostly I guess.

It does reinforce what we already know about paying full price for an AAA download game, you never really own it. It's yours until Nintendo pulls the plug.

Meanwhile, PSP and vita shop is still open. And Wii U was released just one year before PS4. Its like telling you should go for the competition instead that respect their customers more and don't shut down support and e-shop after just few years. Maybe it tells you its time to jailbreak ur console.

Slippery slope towards the shops for both Wii U and 3DS worldwide being shut down from here unfortunately..... It will not be long.

Now is the time to buy/back-up and download those updates for games while you can....

The sad aspect is even with the physical medium, many need massive updates for the games to properly function....
All these people with sealed copy's of games which then try to play them one day, by the time they do the game will be a buggy mess and/or only half on the physical medium or not even work at all.

This also applies to the pre-owned market in years to come, you won't know if the physical game you are buying will even work as intended till you try it. It will be a minefield.....

Regardless of all this I always buy physical when I can, get digital when I must/or when on offer and just make sure I get my money's worth....

Another proof that Nintendo is still fully behind 3DS.

Anyways. It's way too early to close Wii U shop. After all it's a console from THIS generation, and is closing before the Next-Gen even launches.
Meanwhile Sony and Microsoft still sells games for way older consoles.

Well that terrified me for a second, there are still some great virtual console and downloadable games I need to pick up. But it’s alright for now; it’s not ideal for those in Latin American and Caribbean nations who use these eShops though.

This is so last minute, very disappointing.

Meanwhile I can still download my PSP games on my PSP (store is closed on the console, but on the website you van still buy PSP games) and same go for PS3 and Xbox360, and all 3 are way older systems.

Aside from Microsoft and Sony showing how it should be done, I would be more happy if Nintendo closed their stores but allowed redownloading of the games, sadly Nintendo is being Nintendo and they prefer the harsh cheapskate method.

That's 1 reason why I try to avoid digital games on the Switch if there is a physical copy, and if not I most of the time avoid anything above 10 euro, or skip Switch version fully.

Completely idiotic decision about digital stuff, as always, by Nintendo... :/

@Grumblevolcano Nonsense

Digital content goes down, the hackers come up with a way for us to redownload all the titles that went the way of the dodo. Technically, once the system support is dead you are free to do what you want with the hardware, so hack it to your heart's content and put all of your paid games back using roms.

If anybody still wonders why people still prefer physical copies of games: Well, because of this. ~_~

Paying for a game and being unable to re-download it because Nintendo can’t be bothered to keep the service up is just a huge ripoff, what if something were to happen to somebody’s console? The console can be replaced, but the games? Nope.

Looks like Nintendo need to go back and reevaluate their services. I understand Nintendo has announced that eshop would be limited in said countries, but it is fair for customers to expect to re-download games they already purchased. Also, it is important to note that re-downloading games is all customers can do on said systems since Nintendo is not selling Wii U and 3DS games in those regions, only Switch games. Good thing I live in the U.S. For those who live in Latin Amercia, I would suggest opening a U.S. or European Switch account and buy your games on those accounts if possible, though I do not know how costly it would be to buy foreign prepaid codes cost in those countries.

Im sorry, but this doesnt worry me. These eshops had barely anything to them, it was mainly for code redemption to my knowledge. Why keep that going? This isnt an "end of the 3ds/wii u is coming" scenario, this is just logical. Nothin to worry about imo.

I remember how everyone wanted the virtual console on the Switch instead of the NSO offering for classic games. Maybe it’s better to not have Switch VC after all if they do this. The Wii U option was horrible how you have to pay an upgrade fee to redownload what you purchased on the Wii but the biggest offense of all was in order to get the “savings” you have to transfer everything to Wii U first. So after Nintendo pulls the plugs if our Wii U stops working there goes all the Wii and Wii U purchases down the drain. While Nintendo president bows politely to viewers on the Direct presentations behind the scenes they try to get as much money out of us as possible without considering how we can preserve our purchases in an event like this not to mention the high prices for VC software. Looks like we shouldn’t wish for that Switch VC just yet, it’s better to pay $20 a year to play a bunch of retro titles than hundreds on titles that last as long as the game console.

I don’t understand why any company who provides digital content don’t have measures in place to continue providing consumers with ways to re-download purchased content indefinitely. Yes we purchased a license for a game but at some point all media will be pushed to digital downloads only. These days, even physical copies aren’t the full content due to day one updates!

It's only begining. R.I.P. 3DS and Wii U (even if Wii U was died a long time ago already). It's prove, that digital copies is pure evil. I have only 2 digital games from Humble bundle and few Virtual comsole games from Nintendo Club and from Special Editions (like Metroid II Return of Samus) for my 2DS, and I am sad, that soon I can't redownload it. I can't imagine how peoples will be upset, if they bought mostly digital copies.

Just like the Wii, this is when & why digital is bad!

The eShops in question here are barely eShops to begin with. They’re simply skeleton shops that exist solely for the purpose of redeeming download codes. I fully expect the full-fledged 3DS eShops in larger territories (which are still generating revenue, unlike the “limited” ones being closed) to continue on for several more years. Remember, as long as Nintendo keeps selling 3DS bundles in retail stores, the eShop needs to exist to redeem the bundled software. What you’ll see long before the eShops go away is discontinuation of online gaming on older devices, and we’re not even there yet. Relax, people.
Besides, if they can the Wii U and 3DS eShops, what will My Nintendo offer for rewards? They’ve made it abundantly clear that Switch titles are out of the question.

@Richnj with regards to games being tied to a console rather than an Account on Nintendo platforms. This always made me scratch my head, because all my games are tied to my Nintendo account which I made all the way back in 2003 when I registered GameCube games. I used the same account for DS downloads, likewise Wii, then 3DS and then Wii U and now Switch. Whenever I logged onto any of the shops it had a list of games I downloaded. I have even transferred this list from 3Ds to New 3DS and Wii to Wii U.
Nintendo has a record of all these lists even the registered Physical games I have bought.
So in the end all they would need to do is create a streaming service, to re access all these game licenses.
That's how I see the structure they went with. I don't know if they did it differently for other countries though.
Not saying it is better or worse, I am simply stating Nintendo actually have had all the information from millions of correctly used accounts over 17 years of purchases.
If a streaming service ever came out and It used that information, it would sway alot of people to use it. After all, I cannot actually play the old Xbox games without a Gold membership £30-£50 a year.

@Ham-n-jam The 3DS will be even scarier when the 3DS EShop closes because tons of original games that you can't anywhere else will be gone in a flash never allowing you to never play them again unless you use Homebrew

@mrmememan they wind them down as sales plummet, meaning if you hadn't already bought it, you aren't likely to now that Newer machine are out. Alot of the better games get remakes or re releases, and it is looking likely with the times that game streaming services will come to prominence in the future. It will be dead easy to stream a 3 DS game compared to a 4k PC game, they'll let you use your phone as the bottom touch screen and let you mount it between 2 joy con like a modded joy con grip.

I wonder if this has anything to do with the Nintendo Network ID security problems that have been happening recently.

We should ask Reggie what the solution is. A few years ago a gamer told Reggie he spent over $1,000 on digital games on the Wii U eshop and he’s worried about losing his purchases. Reggie said something along the lines of they will have an announcement on this matter, stayed tuned.

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/01/reggie_fils-aime_briefly_addresses_topic_of_carrying_over_online_purchases_to_switch

Many of the comments herein are quite salient — particularly those with respect to the way Nintendo tied games to consoles.

However, it be noted that the the closing eShops are ones which only function as code redemption locations. Games cannot be bought directly from these places. Thus, it could be case that no one is still selling those codes, so there is no reason to keep them open. (Not sure what functions are tied to the eShop, but that could be a general disclaimer).

As for existing eShops, the WiiU eShop is so forgotten that one developer still had games for sale on there 18 months after they lost the rights to distribute them.

Better download those phoenix wright and art academy games while you can...

Wow, already? Was planning on getting Earthbound 1 and 2. Also, a hand full of Wii U physicals which I wanted to update. Guess I better just buy those next month instead of any other platform.

@Silly_G it wont cark it take better care of your consoles man

@Tonyo : I don't mistreat my hardware. Three of my 3DSes have problems due to Nintendo's sloppy manufacturing/parts (two of which are virtually unusable), and there's too great a risk in sending them in to Nintendo where I could stand to lose my games/save data.

This is terrible news! I've got a massive digital library on WiiU. And the storage space is so limited that I'm constantly having to delete and re-download games depending on what I'm in the mood to play. I expected the eshop to shut down sales someday, but I didn't expect Nintendo would stop me from downloading games I purchased.

Wow. Way too soon Nintendo! The Wii U isn’t even 10 years old. Absolutely ridiculous. This makes me quite upset

This sucks but honestly I've become detached from the idea of playing older games. There are to many new games to keep up with.

I imagine this means that more classics will be coming to the Switch. I hope the Switch receives just as many as the Wii. It would be cool if like the Wii U virtual console, the Switch would have GBA and DS games. The best classics are on the N64 though.

@thesilverbrick Funnily enough, I haven't seen My Nintendo discounts on Wii U software in months. It's all 3DS titles.

@sketchturner May I suggest attaching an external hard drive? The extra storage has been super useful, and it cost me less than $50 for a 1TB drive and a Y-shaped USB cable.

I still play WII U, too many console exclusives there

Glad in Brazil we still seem to have some leeway. And thank god I didn't pay for Pokémon Bank, the one month trial was enough to transfer what I had (which wasn't everything, sadly) over to Home. But now I guess if I ever try to capture the Pokémon I was missing in the originals, I'll never be able to send them over, so that's a bummer. Might be the time to sell my old 3DS.... But it's the beautiful golden Triforce one, I really like it's design

@NicolausCamp You'll still be able to play them on your Wii U bud. Nintendo are old school - it is very easy to install all games on Wii U, if you wish you can even copy and install the games from discs directly on Wii U via Homebrew so why worry?

Digital rocks.

@LEGOSuperDKong Nintendo don't need to offer discounts on Wii U.

@Yorumi Really? The Wii U is the most easy to mod console if you choose, with homebrew you can copy and install your discs directly on the console, you can store a complete back catalgue of Wii and Gamecube games digitally on Wii U. You can install emulators, make custom WADs, you can make your own Apps, the list is endless.

This is sad news and if people don't want Nintendo to shut down the eshop in more markets, they should always keep their 3DS and WiiU connected to the internet. Nintendo checks in daily with online consoles and if there are less and less users Nintendo will shut off the eshops quick. My guess is these markets has so little active users the cost is more than its worth. Leave your beloved 3ds and WiiU connected to wifi.

blame the rona

Considering I live in the Caribbean but I got a European N3ds, how will this affect me? My eshop functions the same way as the European. I have all the features. But this is troublesome to say the least.

A lot of doom and gloom in here.
Are y'all forgetting the Wii Shop was online for 13 YEARS?
These Limited eshops were just for code redemption and downloads. Nothing at all like the regular eshop. I doubt they had very many customers. This makes sense from a business standpoint.
As an aside, I read somewhere that the same servers hosting the Switch eshop also hosts those of the Wii U and 3DS, so I have a feeling all three will stay online for the same length of time.

Shutting down the 3DS eShop means all the DSi stuff died along with it. If you hadn't pick up gems like Earthworm Jim Remastered, Dark Void Zero, Cave Story, Dragon Quest Wars, and Shantae: Risky's Revenge on your DSi or 3DS then better do that quickly cause once they close the eShop in your region then those games are gone forever.

@LEGOSuperDKong I think a good old USB stick is nicer than an external hard drive, because you can just plug it in and forget about it. I've got a 256GB Sandisk 'Ultra Fit' in my Wii U and it's brilliant, if you don't know it's there you don't even notice.

@Wolfcreek897 You're connected to the European eShop, so it won't affect you.

THIS is why I buy games in PHYSICAL form. When you buy something digital, you are NOT buying it. You are RENTING it.

Stop being played by the system.

@liveswired Well, whether they "need to" or not, they certainly used to do so. And I for one would appreciate it.

I get that this is how digital distribution is, you buy stuff, you don't really own it, if the service shuts down, you can't download what you bought again, but it's clear that the real problem here is not the concept of digital distribution, the problem is Nintendo and how they are behind the times in anything related to the internet.

Every time we get news like these, people who defend physical media as superior start claiming how it's better because it lasts forever and it's always yours, but that's not really true.

Physical media can still be lost, stolen or destroyed, and even if you take care of it, it doesn't last forever, the cartridges and discs deteriorate over time, discs scratch, floppy disks lose their data even if left untouched, and even the cartridges which are durable, will someday stop working.

Also, in recent years, old videogames became really expensive and buying a collection of old cartridges is not easy, some games can become more expensive than a modern console due to being rare.

The sad thing is that the only way to properly preserve the history of videogames, is piracy.

@nintendoknife The issue with USB sticks is that the memory chips they use for them are the lowest binned, this is why they’re so cheap. When you subject them to constant read-write cycles, which is what will happen when streaming games from them, their lifespan is significantly reduced. Much safer to use a HDD for storing games. If you are using UBB drives then at least back up your save data regularly if it’s important to you.

@nintendoknife
What @rjc-32 said. Nintendo themselves recommends against flash drives. It will work, but definitely have a backup handy.

@LEGOSuperDKong @rjc-32 That notion really stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of what read-write cycles actually are. To actually hit this limit, you'd have to completely overwrite the entire drive non-stop for months on end. Compare this to what you're actually going to do with it: you write your games to them once (let's say you almost completely fill up the memory with all of those games, that's not even 1 cycle), and you write a bit of save data to them whenever you save your game. By the time you hit the write limit, especially on a large drive (on a 256GB drive, you'd have to write 256GB of data about a hundred thousand times), they'll be building the third colony on Mars. Even on a normal computer, where data is basically being written 24/7, an HDD will fail from some mechanical failure long before flash memory (like an SSD, an SD card or a USB stick) will fail from hitting the write limit. Reading doesn't have any significant impact.

If flash memory were actually a problem, surely Nintendo wouldn't have used it in the Wii, DSi, 3DS, Wii U and Switch? Surely Sony wouldn't have used it in the PSP and the PS Vita, and wouldn't be using it in the PS5? Surely (the more expensive) modern computers wouldn't all be using SSDs? Surely mobile phones wouldn't all be using flash memory?

Of course you shouldn't use cheapo USB sticks from a nameless Chinese brand (which often fake their storage capacity), but there's nothing wrong with the big brands' memory sticks.

And this is why, after downloading hundreds of games for Wii and Wii U, I won't make the same mistake for Switch or any other console ever again.

@nintendoknife Well that’s not how it works where game storage is concerned. Game assets are constantly being loaded in and out of RAM from whichever storage medium they’re located. Also memory chips are divided into sectors, each sector comprising of 512 bytes storage. A 256GB drive contains 5 million sectors where the data is broken up and stored. All the sectors have the capacity to fail, the drive’s lifespan is not based on the read or write cycles of the entire capacity. One bad sector could corrupt the entire drive, particularly with the Wii U’s proprietary file system. The Wii U has 2GB RAM, with 1GB dedicated to games. Take Breath of the Wild, 10+GB game, imagine the amount of swapping that goes on between storage and RAM. BOTW especially exemplifies this practice as assets are loaded in and out on the fly, there are very few dedicated loading screens for swapping the data. Additionally you don’t know what the OS is doing behind the scenes in terms of writing to storage. Flash memory in itself is not a problem. The companies that fabricate the chips (Samsung, Micron etc) produce them in large quantities, the process is not perfect and many chips have faults (bad sectors etc). Rather than waste the faulty chips they separate them into bins, with the highest quality chips being used by companies during the manufacture of high spec nvme drives, SSDs or expensive smartphones/laptops. The lower binned chips may be used in lower spec items. Then you get to the lowest binned chips, which are used in the manufacture of cheap USB storage devices. The same applies with CPUs, it’s why you get cheap i3 models, they’re a result of failed i7 yields. There is a reason why they’re so cheap, a 256gb usb drive is not equal to a 256gb 980 pro SSD, even if Samsung manufactured both chips. Using low binned memory to perform the above tasks is asking for trouble.

I live in Chile, and I have the eShop set to USA. I would love to have my own country, but the "limited eShop" was ridiculous.

@rjc-32 "a 256gb usb drive is not equal to a 256gb 980 pro SSD" Of course, but anything flash memory related that's produced nowadays is much more reliable than the flash memory of two decades ago, and how many people even ran into problems with bad blocks on their Wii (or PSP, DSi, etc) back then? In fact, most Wiis were shipped with the cheapo faulty chips you mentioned in order to get the price down as much as possible, Nintendo just told the OS to skip over those blocks, and everything was fine. My thirteen year old Wii has seen a lot of use over the years, and the only bad blocks it has are those it came with out of the box. If that old technology still works flawlessly years later (the Wii's flash memory is from the early 2000s), there really is nothing to worry about with the newer, improved technology.

Expensive SSDs are also mostly expensive because they aren't sold in great numbers yet, and because they're much, much faster than any removable flash storage. A top-of-the-line modern SSD can read and write at 6GB/s, a decent USB stick or SD card tops out at 100MB/s. Even a cheapo 250GB SSD is still an order of magnitude faster than a USB stick or SD card, and hey, it's priced only slightly higher than its 256GB USB/SD counterpart.

It's a bit ridiculous that Nintendo would tell people to steer clear of flash memory on the Wii U, yet encourage them to use flash memory on every other console of theirs. Why they did it, I have no idea, but the hypothetical risk of bad blocks cannot be the reason.

This is annoying 😒 but nothing that hackers and the modding community won't be able to fix. I still have a huge wishlist of digital 3ds games i want so we'll see how long it takes Nintendo to shut their stuff down in Europe.

This is why you don't buy digital games from Nintendo. You literally pay $60 to rent a game for 5-10 years. The Wii U and 3DS eShop will one day close globally just like the Wii. Sony still allows people to access their PSP games from their PSN accounts. And because the PSP has been completely abandoned for five years, I think its very likely Sony will never remove digital games that you bought for legacy consoles.

@Yorumi I know, I have all my original consoles too and much prefer original hardware for example my Snes, MD, Saturn, PS1, N64 (hdmi and everdrive) all sit connected to a 4:3 20" monitor at the rear of my living room, nothing beats the original hardware.

However many have collected VC games and Nintendo's emulators are based on stripped back open source emulation available on the web. You can actually remove the terrible dark filter Nintendo introduced and applied to all VC games on Wii U and install at no cost on your Wii U. That way you can keep all digital purchased games forever.

@nintendoknife Alot of people use flash memory sticks on Wii U.

Nintendo were playing safe. Like all hardware there is potential to fail. I used a spare Samsung Evo 120GB SSD with a y connector so I didn't need an extra power supply. I have 500GB SSD connected to my Xbox One X and a 500GB SSD for portable use.

Unlike the other dudes I can't be bothered copy and pasting information from elsewhere or Wiki, but I will say a general rule of thumb is cost = quality in terms of hardware and peripherals.

@Linux7055 true, Nintendo still believe they own the hardware you bought from the shop.

That's how narcissistic and controlling they still are.

@LEGOSuperDKong I mean they don't need to offer discounts on Wii U as you can get them for free if you really want.

@Anvold It's time to exit Nintendo ONLY land bud - this is a Nintendo ONLY problem, they refuse to allow and restrict license to one console only as they want to keep coining in, so stop tarring digital with the Nintendo brush because they are stubborn and controlling.

There is nothing evil about digital, EVERY OTHER company ties your purchases to your user account, what you bought digitally is available to download FREE on Xbox One with hundreds of BC 360 games which you will be able to redownload again for FREE on Series X, PC is the same regardless of upgrading or store, and PlayStation Network also offers the same service albeit it depends if emulation is available on PS4.

I agree it is sad for these users but Nitendo tied the games to specific consoles unless you do a system transfer. However the games are readily to download and install for free again if something happens via a little hacking and downloading - granted you shouldn't have to but I agree. Nintendo are digital scum.

@liveswired ...I'm really not interested in "free games" acquired by legally dubious means.

Oh boy... we need a list of what to download before it closes globally.

So, is the PS3 PSN Store still up? 🤔
It sounds like the Xbox 360 store is still up and running from what I've read in the comments, but I'm confused with the status of the PS3 PSN Store. 🤔

@KingBowser The WiiU had a run in the Spot light? I'm still waiting for something decent and original on WiiU. Oh Nintendo's spotlight....nevermind

I'm just waiting for the WiiU shop closure. Then WiiU hacking commence.

@Windy I was speaking in terms of the years the Wii U had before Nintendo brought in the Switch. Like Wii U had a span of 7 years, like from 2012–2017 but games continued from 2012–2020. The 3DS still is going strong in terms of games though.

@KingBowser I actually figured that. Sorry if my reply seemed aimed at you. It wasnt plus im just pissy about the WiiU. I actually still play a couple games on it. But I still play Wii and 3ds pretty much everyday or every other day. I want to get a Switch but the price gougers have ruined that. Im an old man now and dont know if I even need a switch anymore. I have actually found out during this whole thing the Wii was a great system. Ive gotten a ton of great games for cheap. Fun to boot. Back in the Wii days I didnt apreciate the system. What im loving now is the local multiplayer games like Wii party and the fun to still be had in groups.

@Windy I get your point. The Wii U still had some of the great games on the system. But I agree it still had flops to it. The Switch was able to counteract those mistakes.

I found on YouTube that the Wii Shop Channel went out of business on January 30, 2019. I found out that interesting that the Wii had a different currency to buy retro games instead of real money.

@KingBowser Found a switch at Gamestop for retail price I was shocked and bought it Been playing mostly Monster Hunter and Dauntless on it but I did pick up Animal Crossing and God Eater. I also got Ni No Kuni ive always wanted to play it but find myself bored with it after playing about 10 hours. Love the Eshop though theres something in there for everyone. im hoping Avabel will make it to switch which was a really fun Phantasy star online type game.

@Ninfan they usually dont have sales when closing down. I guess they figure desperation for some people will kick in at the end. I would love to see them do a half price going out of business sale on WiiU but I wouldnt count on it. In the end I will just hack my WiiU and go that route if I dont sell the system first