{"id":1188692,"date":"2023-10-04T11:26:54","date_gmt":"2023-10-04T15:26:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1188692"},"modified":"2023-10-04T11:26:54","modified_gmt":"2023-10-04T15:26:54","slug":"wii-u-3ds-online-servers-to-shut-down-in-six-months","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1188692","title":{"rendered":"Wii U, 3DS online servers to shut down in six months"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"rss-wrap\">\n<figure class=\"intro-image intro-left\">\n  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/onoff-800x600-1.jpg\" alt=\"We'd like to imagine there's an actual Switch like this that Nintendo will be flipping in April.\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\" style=\"font-size:0.8em\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/onoff.jpg\" class=\"enlarge-link\" data-height=\"768\" data-width=\"1024\">Enlarge<\/a> <span class=\"sep\">\/<\/span> We&#8217;d like to imagine there&#8217;s an actual Switch like this that Nintendo will be flipping in April. (credit: <a rel=\"nofollow\" class=\"caption-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/deadhorse\/367716072\/sizes\/l\/in\/photostream\/\">Flickr \/ Andrew Huff<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<div><a name=\"page-1\" \/><\/div>\n<p>The end is nigh for online network support on the aging Wii U and Nintendo 3DS platforms. Nintendo <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NintendoAmerica\/status\/1709418623566020975?\">announced overnight<\/a> that &#8220;online play and other functionality that uses online communication&#8221; on those consoles will stop working in &#8220;early April 2024,&#8221; just over a year after Nintendo <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/gaming\/2023\/03\/todays-the-last-day-to-buy-eshop-games-for-the-wii-u-and-3ds\/\">shut off downloadable game purchases<\/a> on both platforms through the eShop.<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/en-americas-support.nintendo.com\/app\/answers\/detail\/a_id\/63227\/\">a brief FAQ<\/a>, Nintendo clarified that players will still be able to redownload purchased software and download game update data &#8220;for the foreseeable future.&#8221; Players will also still be able to transfer Pok\u00e9mon off of a 3DS <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/gaming\/2017\/11\/pokemon-ultra-sun-and-ultra-moon-review-welcome-back-my-friends\/\">using the Pok\u00e9mon Bank system<\/a> after the planned shutdown. And software that uses the 3DS&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.escapistmagazine.com\/alone-in-the-streetpass-crowd\/\">unique Street Pass system<\/a> will also still work since it uses local wireless communication between systems without the need for a central server.<\/p>\n<p>While there are still some people using this now-classic Nintendo hardware online, spot tests suggest that the player numbers aren&#8217;t huge these days. A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=iKqnX9n7fz4\">GameXplain test from the beginning of 2023<\/a> found a handful of online players for <em>Mario Kart 8<\/em> and Call of Duty games on Wii U, for instance, but failed to find opponents for <em>Super Smash Bros. for Wii U<\/em> and <em>Mario Tennis Ultra Smash<\/em>. A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Vz2sqX91BA0\">similar 3DS test by a YouTuber<\/a> in January found similarly mixed results, though 3DS launch titles like <em>Super Street Fighter 4<\/em> and <em>Steel Divers<\/em> still apparently had surprisingly strong online communities.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/?p=1973150#p3\">Read 3 remaining paragraphs<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/?p=1973150&amp;comments=1\">Comments<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#013;<br \/>\n&#013;<br \/>\nSource: Ars Technica &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/?p=1973150\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Wii U, 3DS online servers to shut down in six months<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Enlarge \/ We&#8217;d like to imagine there&#8217;s an actual Switch like this that Nintendo will be flipping in April. (credit: Flickr \/ Andrew Huff) The end is nigh for online network support on the aging Wii U and Nintendo 3DS &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1188692\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1188693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,110],"tags":[73],"class_list":["post-1188692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ars-technica","category-unfiltered-rss","tag-ars-technica"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1188692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1188692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1188692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1188693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1188692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1188692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1188692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}