For anyone that hasn't bought for what games they want still digitally do so asap.
https://www.ign.com/articles/nintend...p-discontinued
E-Shop for 3DS and Wii-U to be closed by 2023
For anyone that hasn't bought for what games they want still digitally do so asap.
https://www.ign.com/articles/nintend...p-discontinued
Last edited by Tron 2.0; 03-31-2023 at 05:51 AM.
A friend of mine talked me into buying the GBA Super Mario Bros. 3 for the Wii U, before the shop closes. It has all of the extra levels from the e-reader cards.
Yeah i want to buy that game asap since the e-card reader levels are included.Originally Posted by Gamevet
It always upsets me when a digital games shop or service is discontinued. It is one thing if it is a small dev. that can't afford to keep a server running. It is another thing when a multi-billion international corporation is like, "Oh, we're making money from them all right, just not /enough/ money from them, so we're going to kill them to promote /the current/ or /next thing/!" Sure, these consoles have been online for a decade, however, I am not done yet with paying and playing! Thanks to these "inevitable" announcements, I have got to hurry to get the themes, DLC, and games that I wish to purchase bought before it is not possible.
Unfortunately, it is starting *this August* that you cannot add funds for anything from the Nintendo Wii U and 3DS eShops. That's right, not 13 months (that's for most downloads), we have only 6 months before no funds / shop credits can be bought at all. If you are planning to use a credit or debit card, you have even fewer months than that. The March 2023 part is only for download card codes for specific games like Animal Crossing which you might find at Amazon or GameStop.
The way Nintendo explains it could be clearer. Something like a calendar with bullet points would have been simpler to understand. As it is, here is their page and FAQ about the discontinuations:
https://en-americas-support.nintendo...kw/eshop/p/605
Not to worry, I'm sure Nintendo will make a new shop available for a new upcoming console. You'll safely be able to rebuy everything you own again, and again, and again. There will probably be new ports or remastered versions of certain games as well so they'll work on those new systems with different controls, they're just waiting for everyone to quickly buy the old versions before the store closes, and then they'll make the announcements for the new versions.
calthaer (10-13-2023)
Reminds me: I need to start softmodding my 3DS system.
The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout "save us!"......and I'll look down, and whisper "no."
The end is nigh. Anybody else making some last-minute purchases before both eShops close tomorrow? I don't have a Wii U myself, but I do have some funds on my 3DS that I need to spend. I added the funds with a Nintendo gift card prior to them disabling that option and spent most of what I had a while back, but I've been waffling on what to do with the last 16-some bucks on there. I'll probably grab a couple of games from Level-5's Guild series, but there is a nice Capcom sale going on. Nice discount on Gurumin 3D too, but I played through that on PSP just recently. I wish more publishers were doing a last-minute sale, but I guess they figure FOMO will make people buy even at full price.
It is still possible to add funds if you want, but I don't know the exact details of it. I've never made a Nintendo Network ID, but if you have one and link your system to it, you can add funds online or via Switch or whatever and then those funds will be available on your linked 3DS/Wii U as well. Sometime like that. If I'm getting any of the specifics wrong, feel free to correct me.
This is also the end of the Virtual Console service. Pretty sizable run from 2006 to 2023. I'm sad to see it go, since I much prefer the idea of a one-time purchase than having to pay a subscription. Plus, there's so much that appeared on the Wii, 3DS, and Wii U via Virtual Console that isn't available on Switch. So many of these games are going back to only being available legally via old secondhand physical copies.
Tron 2.0 (03-27-2023)
i tried but it wont let me log into my account on the wii u i am using. says something about it not being the primary system or something like that
edit:
right after i posted this i found my 3ds in a box i was adding more stuff to so i charged it and got a few games but nothing major.
Otosan something or rather for $1 and Gurumin 3d for $1.99
i only had $3 and change in there and the rest of the games i wanted are also available physical so i'd rather just get those.
i would have really liked to get on my wii u to download things but after the shitshow nintendo made of that system i have no issue getting the games i want for it by other means
Last edited by Niku-Sama; 03-27-2023 at 01:34 AM.
I was able to for the wii-u and buy a few games before the shop closes today.I was gonna buy another gift card to buy more but i figure i have enough on the wii-u all ready.If i ever want to put any more games on the console there are soft mods for the console etc.By the way i also prefer the virtual console model more compared to the subscription of nso for switch.
Last edited by Tron 2.0; 03-27-2023 at 05:14 AM.
I own the PSP version, but I bought Gurumin 3D because I love the 3D effect on the 3DS when it's done well and Gurumin is one of those games that I really wished had a physical release on 3DS. It was only $2 digital so I was like, whatever, why not. I also purchased the RPG Maker app so I can at the very least play RPGs others have made and it was free to do so, so why not. I probably won't ever use it, but hey, if I ever decide to do so now I can.
Everything in the above post is opinion unless stated otherwise.
You have to (assume Nintendo doesn't just wipe balances) link the account to a Nintendo Network ID. Then create a profile on Switch, linked to the same Nintendo Network ID. Then on the Funds menu inside the Switch eShop, there will be an option to share the balance with Wii U/3DS. Again, hopefully Nintendo won't wipe balances and will keep them there to be reclaimed in this manner.
Problem if you are a user linked out-of-region accounts is that although Nintendo allowed me to use my US credit card to buy funds on the JP account on my JP 3DS previously, they don't allow that on Switch. It will detect and refuse CC or Paypal accounts outside the account's region. It'll let you still link the account, even if the Switch doesn't match, and you can even access the store. But to add funds, it'll only accept Prepaid Cards (which means you'll have to buy codes from a seller you trust).
Yeah, now's the time to load up on any free apps or demos or whatever you may want too.
I got skunked by tax, since I didn't bother to do the math beforehand. I was less than 50 cents short from getting two of the $7.99 Guild games. So I just grabbed Attack of the Friday Monsters!, which seemed to be the highest praised one, and instead of getting Crimson Shroud, like I had planned, I randomly bought Pocket Card Jockey. I was looking for something priced at $6.99 so I wouldn't be left with much leftover funds. I figured I like games with weird premises, and I'm up for trying more non-Pokemon Game Freak games.
Several months back, I spent the rest of the funds I added getting all three BoxBoy games on 3DS, Pushmo (to go with Crashmo, which my husband already bought on this 2DS years ago), and Earthbound on Virtual Console.
If I cared more about the 3DS, I probably would've added more funds and got all the Guild games and more of the digital-only 3DS-exclusive games, but honestly, I've mostly ignored the 3DS thus far. I was way more focused on the Vita. But it's nice to grab a few things while I can.
When you guys buy games on eshop in the future, purchase the games online with Paypal, this way you don't have to add extra funds.
Everything in the above post is opinion unless stated otherwise.
When I found out "Dungeons and Dragons:Chronicles of Mystara" was on the cheap so I added some funds and jumped into the shop. As I strolled through the virtual aisles I picked up one of the Monster Hunter games on the U followed by "3D Classics: Kid Icarus" on the 3DS. Last weekend I rounded out my shopping with the Smash Contoller option for the 3DS along with Retro City Rampage DX.
I've already played some Kid Icarus but dang...I didn't think they'd mess with the sound.
Kid Icarus is based on the Famicom Disk System version.
I instantly recognized that from the instant I booted it up. The distinctive FDS farty FM sound.
That and the save function were the indicators.
The 3D Classics version is? Huh. I've got an N8 Everdrive that can also play Famicom disk games along with having my NES modded to have proper sound. I may have to take the Pepsi challenge myself as I never did a comparison.
I also bought dungeons and dragons chronicles of mystara for wii-u.Sure i have it digitally for PS3 and a japanese physical copy all ready but i thought for wii-u why not since it's dirt cheap.
So game collecting will go back to how we collected games when we first got into collecting? I'm not exactly finding a huge problem with that as it's how I've been collecting for the last 20 years.
As for download only games, I'm sure people will find ways to still play these games in the future. Just as people used to emulate old console games before official virtual console options existed. There just may not be a paying option to accomplish it.
Are you worried that your Wii U will stop working? Apparently some consoles are dying now because they were made using faulty flash memory, the firmware becomes corrupt and the consoles stop working.
The gaming industry doesn't exist just to serve your tastes and your tastes alone. Less accessibility is always bad. There are only a finite number of physical copies of any game, not all physical copies are in great condition, and the number of physical copies that are viable for playing is only going to decrease as games break down all on their own or in fires, floods, etc. But the biggest problem is that, even if you can find a physical copy for sale for easily enough, many retro games are prohibitively expensive, and I don't want legal retro gaming to be the realm solely of the rich (or those who are old enough to have acquired this stuff cheaply 20+ years ago). Would I prefer to have a SNES cart of Earthbound? Of course. Am I about to pay the current going rate? Hell no. Hence why I picked up the Virtual Console release on 3DS. You can claim things will go back to as they were when we first started collecting, but those days are never coming back when countless games that could be had for less than $20, even less than $5, now cost hundreds of dollars, and finding anything good at a decent price in the wild is a lucky find, let alone scoring something for way less than the market rate.
Yes, emulation exists and has existed for a long time, but it's myopic to think there are no people who prefer to acquire digital retro games in a legal capacity.
And I don't exist to be a walking pile of meat for businesses to simply extract money from however they'd like. I choose to avoid supporting game purchasing methods that I personally dislike, and I have every right to do so. I want physical copies to continue to get made, so if I bought games through digital means, how would that be encouraging companies to continue manufacturing physical copies?
My main comment was that I don't really see how going back to previous collecting methods would be so bad if it came to that. It wasn't too annoying to discourage people from collecting that way for decades previously, if a hobby is too annoying then people wouldn't bother sticking with it for any length of time.
And yet you're encouraging the game industry to move towards a digital download only future where games can be delisted and made unavailable at any time, and sold in a way that prevents them from being resold, given away, or shared with others in any capacity. If you didn't buy it new, you can't ever get it from anyone else either. If someone is born today, they'll never have the chance to ever buy an E-Shop game legally, yet I can still purchase and play Atari 2600 games from well before I was born.
It's like how the Satellaview is mostly considered lost media at this point, and the only surviving games and content exist due to piracy.
If more people went back to buying physical copies over digital downloads then there would be more copies manufactured, meaning there would be more surviving copies available in the future. Games weren't that rare for the most part, with only a few exceptions.
It's more likely that the consoles will break down than the actual games, and when these systems do break down years from now any digital only games stored on them will be all lost. Eventually accounts will be shut down too so no games can be redownloaded, unless you expect console support to continue even decades from now. With physical games, so far there's new consoles that have backwards compatibility and can play earlier games as well as clone consoles that can play older cartridges. Physical games do tend to outlast the original consoles.
Though with the DS/3DS and Switch specifically, there is debate to how long these physical games will last as they're stored on flash memory so maybe they'll fail before the consoles do.
This is true, it's one major part of collecting which I really dislike today. I will mention benefits though, like if you did buy some games used cheaply or even new originally, they could have appreciated in value significantly becoming an investment, meaning if you got tired of certain titles you could sell them for a good amount today. It surprises me how many used DS games have become extremely expensive, many I bought new or used while the console was current.
Your example is also focusing on classic console games, while I'm mostly tending to think of brand new games being released on new/current consoles. New physical copies should be somewhat fairly priced as they aren't discontinued collectibles yet, and there's a chance they could still appreciate in value as a collectible, or be sold or traded in towards other games if you got bored with them. Any new game purchased digitally has zero monetary value, whatever you spent is gone forever. For older games like the virtual console offered, really they should have been offered in affordable compilations like other companies have done in the past.
I will point out that there are some officially licensed rereleases of old games newly made for those original consoles, like Avenging Spirit on Gameboy as one example. If there was enough demand for physical copies over digital releases then plenty more games would be getting releases this way which are still cheaper than the original copies. These rereleases could become valuable in the future as well, unlike digital download copies.
Eventually that won't be possible, services like the E-Shop get shut down making legal methods no longer an option. The future is moving towards subscription services that you'll keep paying for indefinitely and you'll own nothing, this is what current consumers pushed the industry towards with their purchases. You have every right to do that, but I won't support it myself with my purchase choices.
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