Nintendo is finally killing off the Wii U and 3DS

Nintendo has announced plans to shut down online support for the Wii U and 3DS, effectively killing them off permanently.

The writing has been on the wall for a while unfortunately, as earlier this year the company deactivated the Nintendo eShop service on both consoles, leading to a mad dash by fans to buy any of the digital games they wanted to save before they were lost forever.

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Now, Nintendo will be finishing the job by pulling all online support for the Wii U and 3DS, including online multiplayer modes.

The company announced the news in a new post on its official website, saying: “Thank you very much for supporting our products. In early April 2024, online play and other functionality that uses online communication will end for Nintendo 3DS* and Wii U software. This also includes online co-operative play, internet rankings, and data distribution.”

A date for the shutdown hasn’t been given, with the blog saying it’ll be announced at a later time, though it did go on to say: “Please note that 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,” suggesting the shutdown could come sooner than we thought.

Luckily this won’t affect any saved data or owned software, as you’ll still be able to download purchased software from the Nintendo eShop, and the same goes for downloadable update data. It also goes without saying that offline features in games will go unaffected.

The countdown has now begun, when April 2024 rolls around, the Wii U and 3DS will officially be dead and buried.

They had a good run, but all things must come to an end eventually, and luckily most of the online multiplayer titles on those systems are dead anyway, so you’d have struggled to find matches regardless of the shutdown.