Bad news for retrogaming enthusiasts. Nintendo 3DS and Wii U consoles are ending online services. The date is set for April 8 at midnight, French time, by the Japanese gaming giant.
Online services close their doors
On its site, Nintendo specifies that this end of services includes online games, online rankings and data distribution. Good news, it will still be possible to download and play titles that have been purchased on the eShop, even after April 8 at midnight.
As a reminder, you can no longer obtain new ones from the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U store since March 27, 2023.
You will also be able to continue enjoying your games in physical format (cartridge, disc) but only offline.
But there are some exceptions
However, there are exceptions. The Pokémon Bank and Poké Transfert are not affected, for the moment, by the closure of services. Same for StreetPass which “uses local communication between consoles” and not inline functions.