One of Nintendo’s best eras is coming close to an end.
Nintendo recently announced through their Twitter account that the online support for both 3DS and Wii U will be shutting down in April of 2024. People who still cared for and used their 3DS and Wii U consoles came across a sudden closure of e-shops on their respective consoles. Now, with the decision of online support shutting down, this means the consoles won’t receive any updates, and the online capabilities of some games won’t be accessible.
It had to happen at some point, just like other previous consoles, such as Wii, are now becoming retro day by day. As expected, the game giant’s will to cease support for these consoles was pretty much inevitable at this stage. Still, it is nice that Nintendo gave a headroom before actually shutting down the support, this means people can still update their hardware and games before the plug is pulled from all devices.
Nintendo does care about the longevity of their consoles, and in a recent interview with the president of the company, they stated that even if Switch 2 comes out, Switch will be fully supported for the next two years.
Considering that 3DS and Wii U are almost 10 years old, Nintendo had a very successful run with those consoles and they are thankful for the interest of consumers. However, with the slowly declining sales and change for better hardware, it is a reasonable decision on Nintendo’s end.
Even after the shutdown of online support, owners of the consoles can still access some multiplayer-related software and games, such as 3DS’ Street Pass or Pokémon Bank, though we are not sure if they are also planned to shut down sometime after. Who knows, maybe this is another sign that the new console from Nintendo might be upon us.
Support for 3DS and Nintendo Wii U will end in early April next year, so do not forget to update and have some rounds of online fun with them while it is still available.
