For those that nonetheless have a Nintendo 3DS or WiiU, right this moment marks the ultimate day of with the ability to use pay as you go playing cards so as to add funds to their eShop accounts. The change was beforehand introduced in February of this yr.

Both the 3DS and WiiU have regularly misplaced market assist from Nintendo all year long. Beginning in May, customers might not use a bank card so as to add funds to their accounts for both platforms. The eShop for each methods will formally go offline on March 27, 2023, and gamers will be capable to redeem obtain codes till then. 

“As of late March 2023, it is going to not be potential to make purchases in Nintendo eShop for the Wii U system and the Nintendo 3DS household of methods. It may even not be potential to obtain free content material, together with sport demos,” wrote Nintendo in its preliminary announcement.  

Should there be any remaining steadiness following the March shutdown, the steadiness can solely be used on Nintendo Switch titles. 

At the time, Nintendo known as this transfer “a part of the pure console lifecycle.” By the time eShop helps ends subsequent yr, the 3DS will probably be 12 years previous, and the WiiU will probably be practically a decade previous. The WiiU was discontinued in 2017 shortly earlier than the discharge of the Nintendo Switch, and the 3DS was discontinued in 2020. 

When the information broke, Nintendo’s determination had its fair proportion of controversy when a now deleted query associated to sport preservation appeared in a Q&A piece on its web site. Nintendo declared its subscription service, Nintendo Switch Online, as will function the one avenue by which video games throughout the corporate’s historical past can be preserved. There are “no plans” to protect older video games by different means.  

“Across our Nintendo Switch Online membership plans, over 130 traditional video games are at the moment out there in rising libraries for varied legacy methods,” mentioned Nintendo. “Within these libraries, new and longtime gamers can’t solely discover video games they keep in mind or have heard about, however different enjoyable video games they may not have thought to hunt out in any other case.”

Even with the eShop shutdown subsequent yr, Nintendo said that WiiU and 3DS gamers will be capable to redownload video games and DLC. Online play on both system, together with the flexibility to obtain software program updates, shall proceed to operate for “the foreseeable future.”