Nintendo is shutting down online play on 3DS and Wii U in April 2024 | VGC
Nintendo is shutting down online play on 3DS and Wii U in April 2024 | VGC
Online multiplayer and rankings will no longer work…
“In early April 2024, online play and other functionality that uses online communication will end for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U software,” Nintendo said on its Support website.
“This also includes online co-operative play, internet rankings, and data distribution.”
“if an event occurs that would make it difficult to continue online services for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U software, we may have to discontinue services earlier than planned.”
As for Pokémon Bank
Pokémon Bank will still retain its online functionality (presumably since it’s still used by players and uses online connectivity as its central mechanic).
Edit: Official Announcement with Q&A: https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/63227/~/announcement-of-discontinuation-of-online-services-for-nintendo-3ds-and-wii-u
Let's hope for https://pretendo.network/
The jailbreaking community saves the day once again
very cool, I learn something new eveyday
This is just another reminder that we should support proper releases, instead of endless live service games. Preserving titles will become increasingly more difficult in the future
This is why I always favor games and gamemodes you can still play offline or locally than online ones.
Still, pour one out for my old, 850h savefile on MH4U, I had so many great times with that game.Didn't monster hunter's servers already shut down though a while back? I only know because I recently got a vita, but I did see there were community servers. No idea how all that works though lol
The PSP and Vita servers were already down for a while, but you could still play at least 4U and Generations online. I think you still can right now. But yes there are community servers and you can play online on Citra!
Man, you'd think that if there was only, say, 100 people a day using this service they could just scale the service down. Whatever the number of active users they could just scale the service down, that number isn't likely to spike again ever (and even if it did no one would be surprised if there were service interruptions on a service that old).
Maybe it's a security issue? But there are no credit card transactions in online multiplayer? Idk.
Well, no matter how scaled down they make it, there is going to be a maintenance cost. They would have to keep the tech stack updated and keep up with latest security practices, otherwise it could be a security issue.
Not saying they can't afford to do it, just sharing another perspective.
The PS3 and Xbox 360 are 17 and 18 years old. The 3DS and Wii U have just reached 12 and 10 years old.
Microsoft and Sony seem be able to keep the servers up without any issues. The stores are even online too (although the PS3 store might close soon). Additionally, Sony isn’t profiting off the PS3 as the servers are free.
Sure they have more money than Nintendo but it is very frustrating that the servers are already going down… hopefully Pretendo will be able to restore functionality.
Sometimes most people with the knowledge are gone, the people left need to keep things relatively up to date for security reasons, but the legacy systems aren't as nice, so it takes time and is generally unfun to do. Sometimes a new law in Europe goes live and you should be able to add a pop-up somewhere, but when you follow the docs on how to update stuff, it doesn't even work for a myriad of reasons. It's not like maintaining a software for 12 years really, which a ton of businesses do successfully. When you're just keeping something alive that works and almost never crashes, you get to a point where doing mandated new updates gets harder and harder. And now with the shops gone, there's even less of a money incentive to keep the thing going :(
I assume that there is some fixed resource cost for the servers on top of the per-user cost. For example, they need to maintain a user database of every single single account that ever played online.
Also, systems that are designed to scale up well are often not designed to scale down (for example, the match making queue is sized for 10,000 users. It may be something that is not too hard to fix, but fixing it would involve rewriting code that they are not familiar with (all of the devs probably moved on to other work and likely many are no longer with the company) and is going to introduce all sorts of new scale issues (for example, a server needs 1 GB of free memory to run a vulnerability scan. If you cut its memory allocation by 50%, that might not be the case and you will not know it until the 3rd Tuesday of the month when the scan is scheduled).
It is possible that it costs Nintendo almost the same to run online match making for 10 players as it does for 10,000.
Ah so I can finally hack into my 3ds without feeling a little guilty. Anyone know some good guides to do this?
Follow the above guide exactly -- then download:
and also use
This will cover 100% of your bases. You'll be able to play anything and have a great experience. New 2DS XL highly recommended.
With a few useful keywords (you've got them), the literal first result of any search engine. 3DS hacking / custom firmware installation has been extensively documented and is quite straightforward.
What games do you recommend me to give it a chance before official servers are done?
Aside of Smash and Mario Kart.
Does this include third-party games or is it only for Nintendo hosted servers?
Are you also ending online services for software from publishers other than Nintendo?
With some exceptions, online services will end for all Nintendo 3DS and Wii U software. Please contact publishers for information about the online services for their software.
I have an NES that still works. Looks great on this old CRT TV I had in college.
I'm actually less worried about the NES failing so much as the TV failing and then I'm not sure what I'd do...
For over a year it's been fairly trivial to play unauthorized copies of games online with normal players. Should be no surprise they are pulling the plug after their copy protection is broken.
Should get about 6 more years out of the Nintendo Switch's online service before they pull the plug too if this is any indication.
Unauthorized copies always worked online on these platforms. It was Nintendo's original design.
RIP all my Tomodachi Life kids