 Well, Nintendo gave us news that was inevitable, it's not the worst news, but it does represent the true ending of an era. I know we've actually spent some time debating about whether Switch is an 8th or 9th gen system lately, but what isn't a debate about what our 8th gen generation systems are Wii U and Nintendo 3DS? They have been discontinued, 3DS discontinued like a year or two ago, Wii U discontinued before Switch even came out. And Nintendo of America put out an announcement on Twitter, let's just read this announcement and then we'll talk. But before we read it, I want to remind you we are giving away a Switch, old head, a PlayStation 5 or an Xbox Series X to one lucky winner. All you have to do is go down to the glean.io link down in the description or the pinned comment to enter. So Nintendo of America put out this tweet and it says, as of March 2023, it will no longer be possible to make Nintendo eShop purchases for the Wii U and the Nintendo 3DS family of systems. We'd like to thank you for supporting the Nintendo eShop on Wii U and the Nintendo 3DS family of systems. Additionally, you may also look back on your time with them via various play statistics and then they do link to a place for those statistics. Now I want to just glance at the additional information about this closing. It's in their customer support section that they directly link to and it says this, As of March 23, 2022, it will no longer be possible to use a credit card to add funds to an account in the Nintendo Switch eShop on Wii U or the 3DS family of systems. As of August 29, 2022, it will no longer be possible to use a Nintendo eShop card to add funds to an account in the Nintendo eShop on Wii U or 3DS family of systems. However, you could still redeem current download codes until March of 2023. Users who link their Nintendo network ID wallet used with Wii U and the Nintendo 3DS family of systems with their Nintendo account wallet which is used at the Nintendo Switch family of systems can use the shared balance to purchase content on any of these systems until March of 2023. After that, the balance can only be used to purchase content for the Nintendo Switch family of systems. No changes are planned for the Nintendo eShop on the Nintendo Switch family of systems which of course there isn't. The changes to Nintendo eShop on Wii U and the Nintendo 3DS family of systems will simultaneously take effect in software on these platforms where it is possible to make purchases such as Street Pass, Mi Plaza, Theme Shop, and the Nintendo Badge Arcade. Even after late March 2023 and for the foreseeable future, it will still be possible to read download games and DLC, receive software updates, and enjoy online play on Wii U and 3DS family of systems. We thank you for supporting and then they go into the same spiel they did on Twitter where they say you can go check out your play statistics there. But maybe I'll toss up my play statistics. I haven't actually logged in to my stuff in a long time. I haven't owned a 3DS or Wii U in a long time. I don't expect my play statistics to be that impressive, at least on 3DS. I think my Wii U ones are, I don't know if I ever properly linked them. I guess you guys are probably looking at it already. But here's the thing, this obviously represents the end of an era. The Wii U obviously really had a hard time getting off the ground despite having some really nice games and obviously the 3DS, while did sell over 75 million units, technically was the worst selling Nintendo Switch handle of all time. The Wii U and 3DS combined are literally Nintendo's worst generation of hardware they've ever released. And it's really interesting to see them go from the Wii, the heights of the Wii and the DS to the lows of the 3DS and Wii U and then back to the heights of the Nintendo Switch. It's been a big roller coaster ride the last 16 years. And some people are wondering, why are they doing this? Why are Nintendo, the bottom line is this, Nintendo's not going to keep support for platforms they have discontinued forever. The biggest thing to me isn't shutting down the ability to make purchases. It's making sure that we're still able to download all the content we already own and they are saying you still will be able to do that. Now, I am very curious about how the virtual console works. Since isn't it's sort of a separate application. That's not really the eShop and they don't mention virtual consoles specifically here, although they do mention there is a cutoff point to add funds and you do need funds to make those purchases. But yeah, I don't know. I presume they're going to remove that ability as well. What I'm just noting here is this is the end of an era. This is the end of an era of much beloved systems by those that at least own them. I again, I own both. I got to play some of my favorite games of all time on those platforms. You know, Wind Waker and Twilight Princess coming back in HD and Wii U amazing, you know, getting into more Zelda, a link between worlds and the 3DS. Even Triforce Heroes was really damn good for me. And that's not even touching on what were actually the best games on those given platforms. I mean, heck, remember Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, how it's 40 plus million on a Switch? That was a Wii U game, by the way, in case you just weren't aware because you didn't even know Wii U existed. But more than that, this obviously just represented a really unique time in Nintendo's lifespan. Both systems used extremely experimental, never really truly coming back forms of control. As an example of 3DS, obviously the big feature added was the 3D capabilities. You had a 3D screen where you didn't need glasses. They eventually the most popular models became the ones that didn't have the 3D. But yeah, that was obviously one of the major selling points at launch and impressed a lot of people before the system came out. And then obviously Wii U had the whole duality of your TV and a screen at the same time. And sure, we could talk about how Wii U maybe inspired the creation of the Nintendo Switch, which I could see why you would draw that connection. But also it's fundamentally different than the Wii U, because while the Wii U did have off TV play, it really was trying to focus on trying to make something that where you use the gamepad to enhance your TV experience. You know, The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess HD, like I mentioned earlier, there was a novelty to having the full game on screen and not needing to go into a submenu to mess with your items because all your item management was right there on your controller. You would just glance down, click, drag, move around and look back up at your TV and completely enjoy what you're doing. Arguably, it was a quicker way to manage all your inventory. And I know that's not like the most unique use case. I was, you know, people consider that a lazy use case on the Wii U, just like some of the AR stuff. People thought it was kind of lazy on Switch. I mean, I enjoy things like Street Pass. I enjoyed, you know, every time you go to a McDonald's or other locations, you know, getting a whole much of me's randomly to use in your little Mi Plaza games. There was just a novelty to the 3DS. And Wii U that I'm going to miss. I mean, one of the major things I missed that's already been down for quite some time was Miiverse, right? Like Miiverse was, to me, one of the most brilliant ideas to come out of that generation of systems. And Nintendo didn't bring it back. And that really, really sucks because it was a really nice way to just be able to, I don't know, like. Interact with fellow Nintendo fans. Like you knew everybody you taught to and Miiverse was probably going to be really, really friendly and really excited to talk to you and share their drawings. You know, I had a user rating system on their eShop, especially on Wii U, where like you could get a star rating. And well, it wasn't perfect because all Nintendo games were basically four and a half stars or better. So showing that clear bias, it's still with, you know, really good for sorting through some of the other more obscure indie titles or third party games and how well they are doing, performing or play on Wii U. It was a really useful system that, again, wasn't there. By the way, they're still letting you play online on 3DS and Wii U. Like I got to give Nintendo a smidge of credit here. They're letting us know more than a year in advance on these changes. And that is thank you. There's been controversy over the years, like when Sony was trying to shut down a similar thing on PlayStation 4, they were giving people mere months. They were giving them like three, four months notice. That wasn't good. And they obviously had a lot of fan backlash and, you know, they pulled back on that. And same thing here with this, except Nintendo has given us ample time. And there will probably be less backlash because not as many of these systems sold, it's not as popular, especially on the Wii U side of things. So it is sad to just be reminded of the end of an era, but it's also cool to be reminded to reminisce if you were part of that era of systems. You know, what you did, what you played. I like that they kept that up where you can still go back and look at your play statistics. That was a really cool thing back then. They didn't get rid of it. You can still do it. You'll still be able to play online. You'll still be able to redown your games for the foreseeable future. I'm sure we'll get at least a warning, hopefully at least a year warning on when they plan to cut off online services for those platforms. I hope they never cut off downloads. I think that's always the thing that really would irk me is the moment they make it so you can no longer redownload your digital library or DLC. That to me is going to suck. We all know what's going to happen someday. I just hope it happens so far from now that we end up not caring as much. I'd say it's in five years, 10 years from now. They finally shut it out of it. OK. I mean, the platform at this point is 15, 20 years old. I think we can let go. But I don't want to let go right now. So while I don't own a Wii U anymore, and I do have a couple, three DSs laying around still, a couple, two DSs as well. It is still sad to think that this is the end of an era for Nintendo, even if it's an era that might not have been super successful for them. It still is something that created a lot of fond memories for many of us. So I think I want to take this moment. I'm not mad at Nintendo here. I'm not going to rage at them. This was kind of inevitable. The systems, the Wii U hasn't even been in production since what, 2016? I mean, they literally stopped production before we even got to the holidays and before we even knew what Nintendo Switch was. And yeah, they stopped production of 3DS not, you know, not as long ago, but still it's been out of production for a bit. So this announcement isn't surprising. And I do think they're being fair and giving us enough notice. You know, let's say you want to modify your switch in Wii U and get your games off of it. So you never lose your save files and lose your game files. I mean, they're giving you Apple time to sort all this out. Maybe there's games you wanted to purchase on there that you haven't yet and now are super cheap. Hey, they're giving you time to sort this out. So credit to Nintendo for that. I do appreciate transparency. That's one word I never thought I'd use when talking about Nintendo because Nintendo is often extremely not transparent when it comes to things like this. But they're actually being open and honest and giving you Apple time Maybe this is a new Nintendo. Maybe this is a good sign for the future of Nintendo. We've already seen some positive, you know, turn around here, maybe for Nintendo Switch Online where it might actually be becoming a good service. I can't believe that's even coming out of my mouth. Well, I'm not going to go that far yet, but it definitely has the bones and the skeleton in place to become something good. And now they're being really, really transparent about this to a very small fan base they could have just ignored and not done this for and not got that much backlash. So I want to end this video by saying this. If you own the Wii U or 3DS or both, what were your favorite games you played on those platforms and what are your fondest memories? OK, I'm not going to go through my favorite games. I mentioned some Zelda stuff, obviously my big Zelda guy. I'm not going to go through all my favorite games. But what I will say is my fondest memories were really the first time that I loaded up Miiverse on the Wii U. Like still to this day, Miiverse blew my mind. It's not, you know, the greatest social media platform that ever existed. And it was heavily curated and lots of rules from Nintendo to try to keep it, you know, safe for children. But honestly, it was a really cool idea and nobody else has something like this. It was a Nintendo social media only network. And that was really cool. Reminding me of the days when we used to have official Nintendo forums. Like it felt like there was a connection between game creators and, you know, fans, because there would be like AMAs. And if not really, I shouldn't really say full on AMAs, but there'd be like notes posted in there from the creators of the games in the individual game sections on Miiverse. Like here's A. G. Anomo talking about Twilight Princess HG literally in the Twilight Princess HG section. Like it really felt like there was a deeper connection, even though, to be honest, we all know A. G. Anomo probably can't even read English text. So he probably wasn't reading any of those responses and we could see the art. So I don't know. It just was a different time at Nintendo. A time I thoroughly enjoy, but obviously a time that Nintendo had a hard time making their hardware and games appeal to a wider audience. Anyways, let me know your favorite games, your favorite memories. And yeah, you know, you have a year to kind of sort out what you want to do with your digital downloads and your purchases more than a year to still download your stuff. They didn't give an exact data set for the foreseeable future. So, you know, they don't they don't really know when they're going to cut off online services, when they're going to cut off downloads someday. I mean, Nintendo's basically warning you, it's going to happen someday. We just don't know when, likely another year, maybe more after. So you have time to sort things out. Thanks for being transparent, Nintendo. And thank you for, you know, at least supporting Wii U and 3DS as well as you did, even if, you know, Wii U in particular was obviously cut a bit short. But I appreciate what you were trying to do, even if it didn't work out. Thank you guys so much for tuning in and I'll catch you in the next video.