3DS/Wii U eShop Shutdown March 27 2023 - Online Services to go offline April 2024 (Bank Excluded)

[R_N]

This seemed like relevant enough stand alone news to post outside of the BDSP or Arceus news threads.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1493752880733503488

Starting in March 2023, the 3DS & Wii U eShops will no longer allow for the purchase of any titles (and strictly speaking after this year you wont be able to add to your wallet unless you've linked with the Nintendo Online account used for the Switch) or purchase DLC. Note that you will still be able to redownload the titles if you've already purchased them (digitally), but yo ucannot buy anything new.

For Pokemon in particular (to be clear, this is eShop wide, not just Pokemon's titles) this means the following titles will no longer be purchasable, only redownloading them:

• Digital Versions of Gen 6 & 7 titles
• The Virtual Console Releases of Gen 1, Gen 2 and Puzzle League Challenge on 3DS as well as any of the various spin offs released on Wii U's GBA & DS VC.
• The assorted spin off titles for both systems including Pokemon Rumble Blast, Pokemon Shuffle, Battle Trozei, Picross, Detective Pikachu, Pokken, etc
• Pokemon Bank

Pokemon Bank in particular is very notable because this does not just apply to downloading it, but buying new passes. In fact it's even mentioned by name in the FAQ.
Pokemon Bank didn't have a free plan in place, which means that once your final pass runs out, you won't be able to access any pokemon in there (I think, I suppose its possible you can pull them out for free just not in? Someone whose let the pass lapse could better describe this) and won't be able to transfer pokemon from/between/to the VC titles, gens 6,7 & to Home.

e: Apparently TPC has put out a statement saying that Bank will become free to use starting March 2023

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1493768777007308800

This means that while you cannot "purchase" Pokemon Bank after March 2023, you will be able to continue using it (you can also redownload it if you delete it). That's still an issue but significantly less of one. I highly suggest grabbing Bank now if you haven't already, even if you don't plan on doing more gen 6/7 stuff any time soon.

 

[Nokocchi]

Reminder that many important moves for smogon singles, like knock off, are not available as a tm/tr/tutor in any of the Switch titles. While Toxic is a TM and has full compatibility in let's go, it is only for Gen 1 Pokemon, their cross-gen evolutions, and meltan/melmetal. In BDSP it is very restricted.

That also means their is a strict deadline for anyone currently trying to make ribbon master Pokemon in older games.

EDIT: I also realize it would also become impossible to easy obtain obscure older gen moves that suddenly became viable on a Pokemon despite no-one ever using the move on them previously. One such example is Heal Block on Palkia in Gen VII because its Z-move effect, but it could only learn the move in the original Diamond and Pearl and lost it from Platinum onwards.

 

[Kurona]

So in response to the Pokémon Bank situation... this is one cool thing to come out of this, at least!

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1493768777007308800

 

[R_N]

That's extremely surprising news! I'll add that to the op

I legitimately thought Gamefreak would just leave it for dead

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

Pokemon Bank being free to use, especially most of all still being active for those of us who have it, is a big sigh of relief from me.

As someone who still uses Bank, this means that I will still be able to transfer mons from Gen 5 to Gen 6, and likewise from Gen 6 to 7, and whatnot, meaning that if I ever do decide to revisit the DS and 3DS games again in the future, I can keep transferring my mons so I can continue to keep the mons from my previous playthroughs and hold onto them without erasing their existence, is great, and the fact that I can continue to do so even as official support for the 3DS and Wii U dies down (this was going to be inevitable at some point so I'm not surprised this is happening now) is honestly immensely relieving, and the fact that I can transfer my DS mons to the 3DS games and still do so even after 3DS support fully dies down makes me happy.

The only caveat is that those who don't have Bank right now will need to do so before April 2023 or else they will lose access to Bank forever, but for those who do have it, this is a good thing.

 

[BlizzardHero]

Pokemon Bank being free to use, especially most of all still being active for those of us who have it, is a big sigh of relief from me.

Slight problem with this: the exact wording of TPC's release is that the termination date of the free service is undecided. It's possible that Bank will last indefinitely - it's also possible that TPC will terminate it far sooner.

Regardless, this should put everyone one notice to get moving and start transferring their mons. Finish any projects you might have or have wanted to in the past. The end date is sooner than what you think it is, and you don't want to be the person who just missed the cut-off.

 

[R_N]

Well strictly speaking Bank cannot last indefinitely. The servers could be taken down or Nintendo brings down Wi-Fi entirely. If I wanted to speculate I wonder if Gamefreak might consider an update to at least turn Bank into an offline version (software updates will continue to be allowed moving forward)

And if we really want to be cynical then we need to look at business practices: Home uses its Premium Plan being able to get Pokemon from Bank as a selling point. Even the press release is all hey, you know, "please keep using Bank you can still transfer to POKEMON HOME with the PREMIUM PLAN even while Bank is free!"
Considering the cost of Home's plan it's something they probably want to keep a hook for as long as they can.

 

[DreamPrince]

Slight problem with this: the exact wording of TPC's release is that the termination date of the free service is undecided. It's possible that Bank will last indefinitely - it's also possible that TPC will terminate it far sooner.

Would they terminate it soon though? It is needed to transfer Pokémon to Home.

 

[BlizzardHero]

Would they terminate it soon though? It is needed to transfer Pokémon to Home.

Unknown really. While making Home free for everyone who currently has it downloaded is nice, the cost - however small it is - will be cumulative. In terms of cost to value, for TPC it's functionally zero if not negative. So they have a financial incentive to kill it sooner, but no external incentive to keep it going.

I would guess that it's at least a year extra past the closure of the eshop - I don't think that they would announce this otherwise. They may also be planning on killing it exactly when Nintendo decides to close WiFi services for the 3DS. That would make sense, since they wouldn't be able to announce the end of the free service date if that were the case. However, this is all baseless speculation. Everyone is better off playing it safe, rather than trying to cut your projects as close as possible to the end date.

 

[Worldie]

Would they terminate it soon though? It is needed to transfer Pokémon to Home.

Unknown really. While making Home free for everyone who currently has it downloaded is nice, the cost - however small it is - will be cumulative. In terms of cost to value, for TPC it's functionally zero if not negative. So they have a financial incentive to kill it sooner, but no external incentive to keep it going.

I would guess that it's at least a year extra past the closure of the eshop - I don't think that they would announce this otherwise. They may also be planning on killing it exactly when Nintendo decides to close WiFi services for the 3DS. That would make sense, since they wouldn't be able to announce the end of the free service date if that were the case. However, this is all baseless speculation. Everyone is better off playing it safe, rather than trying to cut your projects as close as possible to the end date.

Most likely it'll keep existing until Nintendo 3ds wi-fi is shut down.

That's the most logical thing to do, (i know i know GF doesn't do logic but I think this is more a Nintendo than GF thing since it's related to the 3ds servers really).
Now I'm not sure how long it took for the older system net to actually be shutdown so I can't say how long this would last.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Nintendo shutting down a highly useful, relatively recent, and still relevant game service? Colour me shocked. Better go and download Pokemon Blue...

Nice news about Bank, but I suspect it's a temporary stay of execution. Not having Sword or Shield, I've still got a more-or-less full Bank, so when that eventually shuts down idk where those Pokemon are going to go.

 

[R_N]

Most likely it'll keep existing until Nintendo 3ds wi-fi is shut down.

That's the most logical thing to do, (i know i know GF doesn't do logic but I think this is more a Nintendo than GF thing since it's related to the 3ds servers really).
Now I'm not sure how long it took for the older system net to actually be shutdown so I can't say how long this would last.

NWFC lasted about 9 years, though most of the reason that shut down was more because that was due GameSpy being bought out by another company in 2012. For the record the Wii Shop itself got to keep going until 2019 and even to this day you can still use the Wii Shop to redownload games you actually have.

Nintendo's 2012-on online infrastructure is self-owned, so who knows when they'll shut the 3DS & Wii U online play Servers down honestly, but hey we know it's not this year at least.

 

[Worldie]

If Sony can be a indicator, they have only mentioned of shutting down the PSP, PSVita and PS3 store completely last year (and it was met with not-so-nice reactions), and they backtracked on most of them.
The only one that eventually got shut down is the PSP one, and even then you can still download already purchased games.
Makes me assume that maintaining a "download only" infrastructure isnt very costly and is likely sustainable for 10-15 years without incurring in monetary issues.

So a (relatively safe) assumption is that the 3ds net and thus the "download servers" should still be operable for at very least another 5-6 years.

 

[bdt2002]

I've done some digging into the nitty-gritty details of this situation, and here's what I was able to find in an effort to provide some reassurance.

As far as the Pokémon franchise is concerned, this change primarily only impacts the 3DS lineup of games. The only Wii U exclusive Pokémon games at this time are any of the Virtual Console titles, Pokémon Rumble U, and the original version of Pokkén Tournament which already had a Switch port for a while now. These titles in particular are worth mentioning because each of them follow a set precedent. In the case of the Rumble spin-off series, the games tend to be completely unavailable by the time their online storefronts are discontinued, but not before the release of the following Rumble game. For instance, we got several Rumble games on the 3DS and the Wii U long before the original Wii Shop closed. Whether or not this pattern un-intentionally confirms a new Rumble game for the Switch, that's up to you guys. The Virtual Console, on the other hand, wasn't very active for Pokémon bar a few games until 2016, when several titles started hitting the storefronts for the 20th anniversary. This notably re-opened access to several series that also followed the "discontinued after its sequels & backwards compatibility was finished", including:

-Pokémon Pinball (both the original and the RS one- keep an eye for Game Boy for Switch Online possibly)
-The two PokéPark games (available as Wii download titles, so I still count it)
-Pokémon Snap (series has sense been reinstated)
-Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series (Rescue Team already has a Switch remake; whether or not this confirms an Explorers remake, I dunno)
-Pokémon Ranger trilogy
-Gen 1 & Gen 2 Virtual Console games for 3DS (if Game Boy ever gets on Switch Online, I'd expect these to show up there)

This is not to say that all of these games would be released in the future, as evident by the history of the Rumble series. I would like to mention, however, that the Switch is an 8th Generation piece of hardware, which is notable because the 3DS and Wii U are also 8th Generation. Basically what I'm trying to get at here is that since the large majority of this hardware will remain available on 8th Gen hardware, the hardware that will not be available after the shutdown (such as my precious Ranger games) is essentially guaranteed to show up at some point during Nintendo's 9th Generation lineup on what most people think will be the successor to the current models of Switch system.

The reason I can say this is guaranteed with almost nothing to go off of is because we actually do have things to go off of- 25+ years of history, in fact. Every individual "series" of the Pokémon franchise, main series or spin-off, has always had at least one way to access said series within a given hardware generation. This rule doesn't currently apply to "one-off" titles such as Hey You, Pikachu!, Pokémon Dash, or 2012's Pokémon Conquest to name a few, but that's because, well, they aren't a series. I'm sorry that this post was so long. There's still a lot more I want to say, but I'll save those for a later post in this thread when I get the time. Expect a post about the 3DS main series lineup coming momentarily.

 

[R_N]

We cannot look at "within the same generation" (& I absolutely do not agree that Switch is the same generation as 3DS & Wii U regardless of the technology behind it or its capabilities relative to PS4/XBONE) as evidence that within this generation or the next generation that they're going to come alongside ports of gens 6 & 7; the ideal time for that honestly would have been the switch's launch when "cross gen" titles such as that are common.

That's 4-8 games with a chance of ORAS &/or one of the alolas being left behind. That's a lot of junk to port out there and they'd need to accommodate changes like to the second screens; not impossibe by any means but there's a reason 3DS ports are few & far between all things considered and while its less work than making a new game its a lot of comparative work being done to bring a bunch of old "modern" games to shove onto a system.

And then set the expectation of continuing to do this every single time there's a hard break, for increasingly more and more games.

The other even earlier titles that would also be "stranded", would need to be either part of the NSO (or its next gen equivalent) and I must underline the switch only just recently got N64 games or it'd have to be an independent set of ports which would probably have to deal with its own set of work and also be piecemealed either way (it took a long time for GS to be released after gen 1 and then another year on top of that for Crystal there's no way they just dump them all at once).

I just don't see it happening. They're already buckling under pokemon they don't need to commit themselves to even some of these games. After a certain point there's jsut going to be a cut off; if they put anymore work into this it would be better served trying to figure out a way to get Bank running as long as possible (they're own online servers, or something weird like that) and just having that be that. A legacy system for those who had access before or buy them second hand long after. Maybe at best nintendo decides to stop dragging its feet and have GB VC again and they perhaps port gen 1 & 2 again

We cannot and should not expect, regardless of what happens for the rest of this generation, the idea that they will continue to have them in some fashion accessible just because the hardware available before allowed it with little issue.

 

[bdt2002]

We cannot look at "within the same generation" (& I absolutely do not agree that Switch is the same generation as 3DS & Wii U regardless of the technology behind it or its capabilities relative to PS4/XBONE) as evidence that within this generation or the next generation that they're going to come alongside ports of gens 6 & 7; the ideal time for that honestly would have been the switch's launch when "cross gen" titles such as that are common.

That's 4-8 games with a chance of ORAS &/or one of the alolas being left behind. That's a lot of junk to port out there and they'd need to accommodate changes like to the second screens; not impossibe by any means but there's a reason 3DS ports are few & far between all things considered and while its less work than making a new game its a lot of comparative work being done to bring a bunch of old "modern" games to shove onto a system.

And then set the expectation of continuing to do this every single time there's a hard break, for increasingly more and more games.

The other even earlier titles that would also be "stranded", would need to be either part of the NSO (or its next gen equivalent) and I must underline the switch only just recently got N64 games or it'd have to be an independent set of ports which would probably have to deal with its own set of work and also be piecemealed either way (it took a long time for GS to be released after gen 1 and then another year on top of that for Crystal there's no way they just dump them all at once).

I just don't see it happening. They're already buckling under pokemon they don't need to commit themselves to even some of these games. After a certain point there's jsut going to be a cut off; if they put anymore work into this it would be better served trying to figure out a way to get Bank running as long as possible (they're own online servers, or something weird like that) and just having that be that. A legacy system for those who had access before or buy them second hand long after. Maybe at best nintendo decides to stop dragging its feet and have GB VC again and they perhaps port gen 1 & 2 again

We cannot and should not expect, regardless of what happens for the rest of this generation, the idea that they will continue to have them in some fashion accessible just because the hardware available before allowed it with little issue.

Well, excuse me for wanting to stay optimistic... nah, I’m just messing with you. I can see what you’re getting at with this post of yours, and there is admittedly an argument to be made that the clarified Generation of a piece of hardware doesn’t have much to do with this. Would a lot of what I said happen? Probably not. I’m willing to accept this, though. Nintendo might make some questionable decisions at times, but for one reason or another I like to believe that these decisions are being made with good intentions.

At this point, all we can do is acknowledge the fact that while, yes, the Switch can be perceived as 8th or 9th Gen, there is plenty of historical precedent for both sides of this quote-on-quote “argument that isn’t really an argument”. Both of us, you and I alike, are just as likely to be correct as we are incorrect. I say we wait until whenever their next console comes out for a definitive answer. Perhaps this just one of life’s ways of teaching us patience. :)

P.S. Just thought I should clarify something I was planning on mentioning later: Gen 6/7 ports (probably, you never know) aren’t happening anytime soon. At this stage in the game, even if there was a reason for those Pokémon games to be ported, Game Freak and TPC have moved on for quite some time now.

 

[Worldie]

P.S. Just thought I should clarify something I was planning on mentioning later: Gen 6/7 ports (probably, you never know) aren’t happening anytime soon. At this stage in the game, even if there was a reason for those Pokémon games to be ported, Game Freak and TPC have moved on for quite some time now.

Generic fact: gen 5, 6 and 7 ports are not happening, period.
The games are made for the double screen, so they will require fully fledged remakes to ever get to the Switch (or following hybrid consoles).

 

[Kurona]

The only time a mainline Pokémon game has ever been directly ported were the Gameboy games on 3DS, and we've hardly seen them even approach anything similar in the years since. I would just never assume something like that to happen

 

[Sultan]

Generic fact: gen 5, 6 and 7 ports are not happening, period.
The games are made for the double screen, so they will require fully fledged remakes to ever get to the Switch (or following hybrid consoles).

They ported some of the DS spinoffs like PMD and Ranger just fine, I don't see the problem here

 

[Worldie]

They ported some of the DS spinoffs like PMD and Ranger just fine, I don't see the problem here

Remake/Remaster != port
Games that use 2 screens cannot be ported to single screen consoles.
They can be emulated on them (somewhat) but it's still suboptimal, expecially when touch screen is factored in.

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

The only point at which I can see Gens 3-7 being ported at any point in time is if there reaches a point where physical cartridges of such games become unplayable for whatever reason. Granted that may also happen alongside the hardware itself as GBAs, DSs, and 3DSs will eventually become non-functional themselves some day (they cannot realistically last forever), but if the cartridges die out and become non-functional for whatever reason then there may be more of a reason to port the games: so far most physical carts are still working and playable so that's not really in concern as of now.

Part of what created an incentive to port Gen 1-2 to 3DS Virtual Console I imagine is that physical cartridges of RBY and GSC have been unplayable for a long, long time (even going back to the DS era days) as the batteries that power the SRAM of them have died over 10+ years ago, and unless you have explicitly replaced the battery to repower the cartridge's SRAM most Gen 1-2 Pokemon carts have long lost the ability to create save files as there is nothing powering the cart's memory SRAM.

Gen 3 onwards cartridges utilize flash memory for save data. I don't know how long the memory on GBA, DS, and 3DS cartridges will realistically last but so far there have been very few, if any instances of Gen 3-7 cartridges dying and losing the ability to save. There's the case of RSE carts losing time function because the clock was powered by a battery, but the original Hoenn games are still largely playable on their physical cartridges. Gen 4-7 cartridges have largely remained functional and still playable, even if many of them are expensive as shit nowadays to buy used. There is less incentive to port them when the cartridges of such games are still very much functional and playable for the most part I imagine.

Of course, the other factor is whether the time comes where they decide on whatever "new" hardware Nintendo has at any point that they want to do a "Virtual Console" for DS and 3DS, which so far has never been the case, the DS hasn't had any sort of Virtual Console releases thus far and the 3DS of course is still not old enough for that in their eyes I imagine. If any future Nintendo hardware is capable of doing DS and 3DS games feasibly well in the future I could see it, but right now I don't see it happening at the moment, especially since the Switch isn't really capable of it. Of course, that doesn't rule out the possibility that the GBA, DS, and 3DS games will be ported in the distant future with future hardware after the Switch and the DS and 3DS become so old that the physical carts are no longer playable, but that will have to wait for a long while I imagine.

 

[R_N]

I think the primary reason Gen 1 & 2 got the VC treatment was a combination of nostalgia and specifically because those 2 gens were completely separated. Even Gen 3, janky and round abotu though it may be, had a clear path. The GB games had nothing unless you messed with hacking. The 3DS, and Bank, was an opportunity to bring those games "forward".

The 3DS carts are already starting to sporadically fail, DS carts likely on the outs, GBA carts I believe also having their issues. But I don't think any of this will necessarily act as incentive; there's just too many. If something does happen, perhaps a collection of the GB or GBA games, I think it'll be motivated primarily by nostalgia (see also: the mario all stars collection and the extremely inexplicable Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon localization) and being relatively (RELATIVELY!) easier than porting all the others and even then well,...I'm repeating myself by this point.

 

[Rarycaris]

I agree that 3DS ports are overall unlikely to happen, but wasn't there some evidence of ORAS having been ported to the Switch as a testing environment at some point?

 

[Kurona]

I agree that 3DS ports are overall unlikely to happen, but wasn't there some evidence of ORAS having been ported to the Switch as a testing environment at some point?

Well, I mean, you said it right there -- as a testing environment. I didn't know about ORAS specifically but this is pretty common to lay the groundwork for new titles on a new console

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Purely by chance as I was scrolling through Twitter earlier I saw this, and it seemed appropriate