It seems that Nintendo is not respecting its own schedules. Several months ago, the company announced the upcoming closure of the virtual stores of its old consoles. Since then, the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS have been affected, whose respective stores were to close permanently from April. But while we are still in the busy holiday season, with temperatures approaching 0 outside, some players are already noticing several restrictions.
Indeed, it is already impossible to play online on these two machines, players have learned this to their cost. Not all users seem to be affected, but a good number of them noticed the change just before Christmas. This happened to our colleagues at Nintendo Life but also to many retrogaming fans who still actively use the services of both consoles.
What a nice gift under the tree
The real problem with this situation is that Nintendo forgot to warn its players. Indeed, we knew from the beginning of the affair that the closure in April was not set in stone. For this type of operation, companies often proceed gradually, which explains why not everyone is affected yet. However, Nintendo has not sent any emails or messages to its users who were caught off guard.
It seems that not all network-related features have been deactivated yet. It has technically been impossible to purchase titles on the online stores of the Wii U and 3DS consoles since March, or to fund your account. Even after the deadline, which could therefore arrive at any time, players will have the possibility to access their already purchased games, but will no longer be able to benefit from online games.
This still poses concerns in terms of the preservation of cultural assets, but it is not surprising when we are talking about dematerialized titles. The very existence of the assets is subject to the goodwill of the company, which keeps servers dedicated to certain functionalities... until it is no longer profitable.
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