The 3DS and Wii U eShop is about to have a big change

According to GameRant, there has just been another alarm bell about the end of the 3DS and Wii U era. Earlier in February, Nintendo announced that it would stop offering eShop apps on the 3DS and Wii consoles. U, intends to terminate it entirely by March 2023. Following this announcement, Nintendo fans expressed concern and made re-downloads of exclusive titles that may not be accessible in the very near future. But the situation is getting a little tougher, as Nintendo will be disabling the use of credit and debit cards on the 3DS and Wii U eShop on May 23.

The 3DS and Wii U eShop will no longer support the use of credit and debit cards gamerant

This is a must for Nintendo, as they took similar measures to disable the Wii Shop Channel and DSi Shop in 2019 before shutting down the 2 services’ servers entirely a few months ago.

Nintendo had a stellar track record late last year, with big hits like Pokémon Legends: Arceus and Kirby and the Forgotten Land, expanding the Nintendo Switch Online service and helping the Nintendo Switch reach 100 million units worldwide. That said, decisions to ‘exclude’ classic services tend to leave a lot of regrets for fans, if this trend continues in an all-digital future, it seems as many games released on Nintendo-owned platforms will quickly reach the point of becoming obsolete.

The preservation of video games has become a major topic of discussion in recent years. As older hardware becomes harder to maintain and newer digital offerings crush their predecessors, hundreds of quality classic titles are at risk of being lost forever. It’s hard to know exactly how many games were inaccessible to the public when the Wii Shop Channel closed.

Nintendo is very ‘disliked’ by emulating games beyond their control. Constantly going to war with sites that host ROMs of old NES, SNES, and N64 titles, and take down YouTube videos instructing Steam Deck owners how to emulate classic Nintendo hardware on Valve’s new devices. The publisher’s tough stance against this behavior shows that it’s getting harder and harder to preserve old games.