3DS And Wii U Online Play Will End Next Year
Nintendo has announced that, in April 2024, online play and communication will end for the 3DS and Wii U.
This means that the first Splatoon, Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Bros. 4, Mario Maker, Xenoblade Chronicles X, and more will not be playable online after next year. As for whether third-party games will suffer the same fate, Nintendo stated, "With some exceptions, online services will end for all Nintendo 3DS and Wii U software." If you're still playing Minecraft or Terraria on Wii U, you'll likely have to stick to singleplayer going forward.
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The only first-party title that will still support online services is Pokemon Bank, but Nintendo stresses that support "may also end at some point in the future." And while the plan is to shut down online functionality in April, Nintendo stated that "if an event occurs that would make it difficult to continue online services, we may have to discontinue services earlier than planned."
If you want to continue placing badges from the arcade onto your 3DS home menu, you need to do it before the service ends. According to Nintendo, it will otherwise "display an error screen when launched", making it impossible to use the software.
Earlier this year, the Wii U and 3DS storefronts closed down, as well. That means you can't buy any new games digitally on either platform. With online functionality also coming to an end, it's clear Nintendo wants to move the last stragglers to the Switch, to the detriment of preserving the two consoles' libraries. Expectedly, it's not going down well.
"This was inevitable but this news still hit me like a truck," Reecee said. "Is it really that hard for a multi-billion dollar
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