Nintendo To End Online Services For Wii U And 3DS In 2024

Nintendo’s Wii U and 3DS consoles will lose support for online services next year at the beginning of April, as the Japanese game giant announced. This effectively removes all online support functionality, including multiplayer and other features.

“Nintendo 3DS and Wii U software online games and other functions that use online communication will end at the beginning of April 2024. Thank you very much for your continued support of our products,” Nintendo announced on X (formerly Twitter).

However, Nintendo has decided to make one exception in the form of Pokémon Bank. Its online services will still work, but it too will lose support in the future. Nintendo has also made provisions to allow users to download titles they have purchased from the eShop. “For the foreseeable future, it will still be possible to download update information and re-download purchased software and downloadable content from the Nintendo eShop,” Nintendo notes in the Q&A section.

With the end of online support, players will lose the ability to play online, but that doesn’t change the fact that they can still play their games offline, including local multiplayer and other single-player games like The Legend of Zelda. : Breath of the Wild.

Also, you can always search for physical games if you want to experience the large library of 3DS and Wii U games, as they will continue to work. However, buying new games from the eShop would not be possible, as this support has already ended in March earlier this year. Simply put, if you want to play a game like Pokemon Sun on the Nintendo 3DS console, you need to buy a physical copy of the game.

It should be noted that Nintendo discontinued the 3DS in 2020, and it’s been almost three full years since then. The Nintendo Wii U, the successor to the Nintendo Wii, was discontinued in 2017, the same year the Nintendo Switch was released.