Over the past few years, Nintendo has been gradually dropping support for the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U and they focus all of their work and resources on the Nintendo Switch. The process has been slow, but Nintendo has decided that the time has come to end support for yet another thing on the 3DS and Wii U.
Nintendo has announced earlier tonight that “the handling of credit cards and transportation e-money in the Nintendo eShop on the Nintendo 3DS series and Wii U will be terminated at 9:00 a.m. on January 18th, 2022 (Tuesday). After the termination, you will no longer be able to add balances using credit cards and transportation e-money from the Nintendo 3DS series and Wii U”.
The good news is that this change is mainly for direct payments. You can use indirect methods, such as the Nintendo Switch, to be able to add funds to the 3DS and Wii U eShops. But it is yet another sign that Nintendo has, unfortunately but unsurprisingly, decided to move on from the 3DS and Wii U.
But, why?
Running a Visa or Mastercard is not free. Those companies charge you for doing so. You get a rate based on volume. So If you do a billion dollars in business, you pay a lower rate per transaction than if you do $200 in business. So as the Wii U and 3DS shops do less and less business over time, they also get progressively less profitable.
This couples with the fact that they don’t intend to keep these shops open forever, and it comes as an easier blow if they discontinue adding money long before they take the shop down entirely.
I was about to get very sad, but then I remembered that 3DS/Wii U eShop money carries over from the Switch and vice versa. It shouldn’t be too much of a change I guess, unless you don’t have a Switch (in which case, you’d have to use eShop cards).
I’m more so concerned considering that, when this same thing happened to the Wii Shop, it more or less signaled its death within a year. Hopefully Nintendo doesn’t gut these stores too within a year, since 3DS games are already hard enough to find as it is and the Wii U shop has some rare games on it as well.
The Wii U eshope is a better deal, I cant believe they are going to do this for real.
Haha, remember when people praised Nintendo for bringing eReader files to supported games for the GBA on Wii U Virtual Console? I guess Nintendo forgot about that too
Well both consoles are around the 10 year mark, and the poor Wii U is just not great anymore. The 3DS has had its day.
They should’ve at least kept Miiverse around. Unironically played this more than any game on that thing.
3DS or 2DS should be available for a value price, instead of being marked up to high prices on secondary markets. Why not have it for $100 and let people buy classic NES, SNES and GB games on it. For people who want it or for their kids first video game device.
This is sad cause I used the 3ds to be able to buy Japanese games using via an American credit card which immediately did the conversion. The switch can’t do this and won’t be able to do this cause Nintendo didn’t implement this method (unless Nintendo is planning to implement this feature into the switch).
Kind of sad that the Wii U eShop STILL has a much, much larger and better selection of games than the Switch eShop