Nintendo has put the penultimate nails in the 3DS’ and Wii U’s respective coffins, with the announcement that they’re ending online support for the consoles.
According to a statement from the company, as of April 2024, “..online play and other functionality that uses online communication will end for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U software.” That means that if your games of choice have any kind of online feature, that function will cease to work.
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As of early April 2024, online play and other functionality that uses online communication will end service for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U software. Thank you very much for your continued support of our products.
Find out more: https://t.co/nOyzBImHCE
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) October 4, 2023
The Wii U versions of Mario Kart 8 and Splatoon, which had their online play restored last year, will be offline only. That’s less of a problem for Mario Kart 8, since it supports split-screen couch co-op. But the Wii U is link-up only, so any other Wii U-owning friends will have to bring theirs around. That’s assuming, of course, your friends are still on the Wii U. There’s definitely a Wii U player base, but with the Switch having been out for six years, we suspect most people will have moved onto the Nintendo Switch. But the 3DS? That’s a different matter. The Nintendo Switch may be portable but it’s not pop it in your pocket-sized and the 3DS is still Nintendo’s most up to date, easy to carry console. We can see this shutoff having a bigger impact on 3DS owners.
So if you use your 3DS to play online, or compete to beat other people’s online rankings, if your 3DS games has any online element whatsoever, they’ll be gone in April 2024. Does that also mean you can’t redownload any games you’ve purchased? After all, the eShop was already shut down in March. No, you’ll still be able to redownload purchased content, that’s not going. Yet. If that does happen, it’ll mark the ultimate end for the 3DS and Wii U, it’ll be the moment when Doctor Mario yeets the 3Ds and Wii U’s corpse into a skip.
In the past, some enterprising individuals have re-enabled online play for dead games, so it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that someone will do the same for the 3DS and Wii U. That may, however, involve hacking the consoles to run homebrew, and Nintendo would likely bring the hammer down.
So, if you’re a dedicated Mario Kart 8 Wii U player, you’ve got until April 2024 to get a last few online laps in.
