Nintendo Confirms Wii U and 3DS eShop Closure Dates

[Tsing]

Nintendo has confirmed the exact closure dates for its 3DS and Wii U eShops.

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[DrezKill]

Doesn't matter for 3DS cuz the system was blown wide open long ago, and is extremely easy to soft-mod. Wii U can also be soft-modded, and between that and the emulator Cemu, Wii U is well-covered too.

 

[Zarathustra]

I still have my original game boy from the 1980's, and it works just fine with all the cartridges.

As long as users can back up their purchases, this is fine, if they can't it is a problem.

 

[DrezKill]

I still have my original game boy from the 1980's, and it works just fine with all the cartridges.

Yeah, physical media won't go anywhere. Well except if it gets lost, or stolen, as what happened to me with most of my NES games (most of which I did end up re-buying), along with some DS games with my first modded DS, though that was a separate incident. Physical media can also be damaged. But I'd rather lose my games, movies, and music to those situations than having a company decide that paying customers will no longer be able to access the stuff that they paid for.

Still got my original GB too, and all the other ones I've had. My family's first system was the Atari 2600, which belonged to my mom (as did our second home console, the NES). So the very first console of any kind I had that was mine was the original Game Boy, which I got for Christmas in '89. Lost a good amount of my games since then (and some peripherals), but still got plenty of 'em. My brother has a red original Game Boy, then he got a clear GB Pocket, with the best and largest screen out of all the original Game Boy family. I always preferred playing on that than on the OG Game Boy (although the smaller size made it more uncomfortable). Then we both got GB Colors. For the next gen he got GB Advance and then I did some time later, eventually replaced with a GBA SP (first Game Boy of any kind with a lit screen, if you don't count the Japan-only Game Boy Light). Still got all of those. My mom and my sister had various ones too, such as GBC and GBA (my sister had a Game Gear too! Still got it around here somewhere, screen is broken though). For the last decade or so I usually just stick with emulation when playing GB/GBC or GBA games. But yeah my family was pretty big on Nintendo handhelds, thanks to my mom (she loved Nintendo and liked to collect their handhelds). She, my brother and I also have various DSes and 3DSes.

As long as users can back up their purchases, this is fine, if they can't it is a problem.

On Wii, game purchases were tied to the system, not to an account (and I think this was the same case with the DSi, the only version of the DS that had access to downloadable games). So if you ever lost the data on that system (or the system itself), you were f*cked. Happened to pretty much everyone who ever sent in a Wii for repair. If Nintendo repaired the unit they wiped it, so you got screwed. If they gave you a new unit, well you couldn't just jump online and re-download your games. You had to buy them again. Thankfully soft-mod saved the day there. You could back up everything on your system, from save files (which Nintendo often liked to protect with some kind of DRM so you could never copy it/back it up), to games, to making a full NAND backup. You had access to community demos of games to replace the legit ones you lost. You can also rip game discs, and then access them digitally from USB storage (if you don't wanna download ISOs from the high seas). Starting with 3DS in 2011 Nintendo finally moved things over to an account-based system. Before then though, sh1t was rough if you were on a stock 7th-gen Nintendo system.

Users not being able to back up the games they paid for in situations like the above, or re-download games when they are no longer listed on the digital store (as Microsoft and Valve and probably some other PC storefronts allow you to do), is another reason why I am glad community demos exist. This is also a very viable path for replacing stolen goods. If I already paid for a game, and owned it, and it got stolen, why should I have to pay for it again? If an online service goes down permanently, users should be given a good heads-up so they can download and archive their library. Still, if they don't back their stuff up, when the service goes down they lose all of that sh1t they paid for, so yeah still not a great solution.

Also why should I have to pay for an NES game on a later Nintendo console if I already own that game for the original NES? Plus I can pull the ROM from my cartridge to play on a superior emulator on PC than what Nintendo offers on their later systems (again if you don't feel like grabbing a ROM online somewhere). Greedy-@*** companies wanna f*ck over consumers, but thanks to the community there are always options out there.

 

[Brian_B]

Yeah, physical media won't go anywhere. Well except if it gets lost, or stolen, as what happened to me with most of my NES games (most of which I did end up re-buying), along with some DS games with my first modded DS, though that was a separate incident. Physical media can also be damaged. But I'd rather lose my games, movies, and music to those situations than having a company decide that paying customers will no longer be able to access the stuff that they paid for.

Well, they can still shut down the servers and kill your game - unless it's the rare game today that has no online component required for gameplay.

 

[serpretetsky]

On Wii, game purchases were tied to the system, not to an account (and I think this was the same case with the DSi, the only version of the DS that had access to downloadable games). So if you ever lost the data on that system (or the system itself), you were f*cked. Happened to pretty much everyone who ever sent in a Wii for repair. If Nintendo repaired the unit they wiped it, so you got screwed. If they gave you a new unit, well you couldn't just jump online and re-download your games. You had to buy them again. Thankfully soft-mod saved the day there. You could back up everything on your system, from save files (which Nintendo often liked to protect with some kind of DRM so you could never copy it/back it up), to games, to making a full NAND backup. You had access to community demos of games to replace the legit ones you lost. You can also rip game discs, and then access them digitally from USB storage (if you don't wanna download ISOs from the high seas). Starting with 3DS in 2011 Nintendo finally moved things over to an account-based system. Before then though, sh1t was rough if you were on a stock 7th-gen Nintendo system.

Let me get this straight
1) Wii games are only kept local on the machine, not tied to any account.
2) Nintendo made no official way to back it up off the machine

So between the 2 camps of
a) games should be a service because it is convenient
b) games should be something you own so that companies dont control your games

Nintendo chose
c) Congratulations, you have purchased a game. ... Wait.. you own a game? What game? do you have proof? no? bummer. Would you like to purchase a game?

 

[Brian_B]

Nintendo made no official way to back it up off the machine

This part isn't entirely true.

If you have the original machine, there is a backup / restore mechanism for swapping machines.

How to Put Wii Games on an SD Card From PC

Copying Wii games to an SD card frees space on your computer hard drive and allows you to play the Wii games from your Wii on a backup loader that can use the SD card. You can prepare the SD card and copy the Wii game in a short amount of time.

itstillworks.com

The issue was, if the original machine is broken/stolen/etc -- then it was a bit more involved, you had to get in touch with Tech Support to allow digital purchases to transfer to the new machine.

Nintendo Support: Can I Transfer Data from One Wii Console to Another Wii Console?

en-americas-support.nintendo.com

Not ideal, that is for sure. I guess that's why it got fixed for subsequent consoles. Nintendo has never had very stong online services...