Nintendo sluit 3DS, Wii U-winkels, Giles Classic Game Owned

In een bericht Getiteld “Beëindiging Wii U & Nintendo 3DS eShop”Nintendo heeft aangekondigd dat het in maart 2023 zal stoppen met online storefriends-activiteiten voor beide systemen.

Maar in praktische zin beginnen sluitingen veel eerder dan dat:

– Vanaf 23 mei 2022 worden creditcards niet meer gebruikt om tegoeden toe te voegen aan accounts in de Nintendo eShop op Wii U- of Nintendo 3DS-familiesystemen.

– Vanaf 29 augustus 2022 wordt de Nintendo eShop-kaart niet meer gebruikt om geld toe te voegen aan Nintendo eShop-accounts op de Wii U- of Nintendo 3DS-familiesystemen. Downloadcodes kunnen echter tot eind maart 2023 worden opgehaald.

Voor zover mensen het al leuk vinden om hun eigen games te spelen, zegt Nintendo:

Na eind maart 2023 kun je in de toekomst games en DLC opnieuw downloaden, software-updates ontvangen en online spelen op de Wii U- en Nintendo 3DS-familiesystemen.

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All of this is expected stuff. The 3DS is 11 years old this year and the Wii U ten, so digital store closures were always going to happen sooner or later. What’s shitty about these closures in particular, though, is that both shopfronts offered users the ability to purchase and then own many of Nintendo’s greatest ever titles, something you’re now largely unable to do ever since the company switched to a subscription model with Nintendo Switch Online.

The company saw this coming. When the blog post was first made, an associated FAQ had the following exchange:

Once it is no longer possible to purchase software in Nintendo eShop on Wii U and the Nintendo 3DS family of systems, many classic games for past platforms will cease to be available for purchase anywhere. Will you make classic games available to own some other way? If not, then why? Doesn’t Nintendo have an obligation to preserve its classic games by continually making them available for purchase?

Across our Nintendo Switch Online membership plans, over 130 classic games are currently available in growing libraries for various legacy systems. The games are often enhanced with new features such as online play.

We think this is an effective way to make classic content easily available to a broad range of players. Within these libraries, new and longtime players can not only find games they remember or have heard about, but other fun games they might not have thought to seek out otherwise.

We currently have no plans to offer classic content in other ways.

“We currently have no plans to offer classic content in other ways” is an incredibly shitty thing to read, because under zero circumstances is a subscription-based model an acceptable substitution to actually owning a game.

Especially wild, then, is the fact that not long after publishing this, Nintendo wiped that particular section of the Q&A from its site. Nu bezoeken En “Moet Nintendo zijn klassieke games niet beschermen door ze beschikbaar te stellen voor doorlopende aankoop?” Het onderdeel is weg.