Why is Nintendo shutting down the 3DS and Wii U eShops?
The time is upon us.
Over a year after Nintendo’s announcement that it would close the online store for two
of its previous devices, these eShops are now closing.
You asked why, so we’ll tell you: Because of money.
Nice and simple.
Except, there is more going on here.
If we delve a little deeper into why these eShops are unprofitable, we can discover a
peculiar, very Nintendo-specific business decision, baked into its hardware, that has
led to this inevitability.
This has all to do, sadly, with Nintendo not future-proofing their creations.
Because, make no mistake, Nintendo does not expect any of its storefronts, not even the
hugely popular Switch, to last beyond a few years after obsolescencek.
The official Q&A on the Wii U and 3DS eShop closure states:
“This is part of the natural lifecycle for any product line as it becomes less used by
consumers over time.”
This natural lifecycle, according to an anonymous former Nintendo employee, is designed specifically
to avoid lawsuits.
Speaking to Nintendo Life, they said: “Nintendo knows it has to support a product
for a minimum of 10 years or they risk some class action.
“Internally, [Nintendo] has been waiting for that day since 2014 based on sales...
Nintendo looks at the first 2 years as the indicator of when to start packing it in with
a console.”
According to this source, the sales of Wii U consoles was so low during these first two
years that Nintendo set plans into place to only support the console for as little time
as possible.
They said: “While [the Nintendo Switch] was being worked
on, you saw a test with amiibo and a bunch of weird apps that interacted with those on
Wii U.
All just busy work to fill the sales void until [the Switch] would arrive.
… “We started talking Wii U repair and replacement
numbers about a year prior to the Switch launch.
[Nintendo of America] was nearly out of optical drives for the repair/replace program…
and I mean like 2016 you could eyeball how many were left.
[Japan] had a good supply, so they moved that inventory to [America] so we could handle
repairs at least until the Switch launched.
So the [End-Of-Life] program at least for the console began before NX launch.”
The plan, then, was always to ditch the Wii U as soon as possible after the Switch launched,
with both hardware and software support provided only as long as necessary to avoid lawsuits.
This same anonymous source suspects that it won’t be long before the Wii U and 3DS servers
are turned off entirely.
Why, though, does keeping a legacy storefront operational cost so much money?
While these older eShops aren’t a large part of Nintendo’s business model, are they
really costing more than they bring in?
Potentially, yes, due to the increasing costs to maintaining the storefronts’ security.
According to IT expert and Twitter user Game Over Thirty:
“While a decade doesn't feel like a long time, servers, operating systems, regulations,
policies, and laws are continually being updated.
The constant march of technology and global regulations actually causes some IT infrastructure
to get MORE expensive to maintain over time.
… “I once worked for a company that spent
multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to maintain a SINGLE legacy server
for a business process.
The business should have axed the server & processing many years ago, but they never did, and thus
they kept paying for it.
“That was one server!
Now look at #Nintendo.
The 3DS eShop (for example) likely has payment infrastructure, security, servers, operating
systems, redundant channels, etc, all of which are likely on "systems" from the time the
eShop was created (circa 2010).
“As these systems age, they require patches, security, special contracts, updates, and
personnel that know how they were built (and maintained).
As time goes on, there are security holes, servers, code, infrastructure, etc, that can't
be brought up to modern standards.”
The problems with these legacy Nintendo servers are illustrated in an example from December
of 2022, when a major security vulnerability was discovered in 3DS, Wii U, and Switch servers
for Mario Kart and other games.
According to Nintendo World Report: “The "ENLBufferPwn" exploit, rated as a
9.8 / 10 (Critical) on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) scale, has been found
in older Nintendo games dating back to Mario Kart 7 and can allow for a full takeover of
the system by a third party.
Potential uses include accessing saved payment information and using the 3DS and Wii U GamePad's
built-in cameras and microphone to capture audio and video. ‘l’
… “Mario Kart 7 recently received its first
patch in over a decade to patch the issue, and the Switch titles have either been patched
out-of-cycle or had the fix included in other feature updates.
However, the Wii U games have not been patched as of press time, and it is not known if they
will.
The patch system of the 3DS, which requires downloading them from the eShop, also means
that other vulnerable titles may not be fixed prior to the closure of the 3DS and Wii U
eShops in March.”
Keeping these older servers online, then eats into the cost of maintaining servers that
are actually making Nintendo money.
Once a new online storefront is established, Nintendo doesn’t like to spend a lot of
resources on older stores, but these still need patches, updates, and careful maintenance
to avoid security leaks that could damage both Nintendo and its customers.
Nintendo could have built the Switch eShop directly on top of the Wii U’s shop.
This would have meant one store to update, rather than multiple independent systems.
This, for whatever reason, is not the approach Nintendo took, and it comes with consequences.
According to Shigeru Miyamoto: “Of course, video games developed for dedicated
consoles were created in different development environments for each console.
As a result, when the hardware changed, the development environment could not necessarily
be reused, and so the video games that had been released on older consoles could not
be played on newer consoles without additional modification.”
There are benefits to drawing a line under the Wii U and starting afresh.
The Switch is far more friendly for developers, especially those working in Unity, and this
might have not been the case if Nintendo had not chosen to continue with their existing
architecture.
The downside is that preservation and archiving of older games is a lot more difficult as
Nintendo’s platforms evolve dramatically with each new iteration.
Or, as Game Over Thirty puts it: “Nintendo chooses (right or wrong) to set
up their eShops & systems per project.
Meaning: The 3DS and WiiU eShops are VERY likely their own entities, with their own
cost structures and systems to maintain.”
The Wii U and 3DS eShops are casualties of Nintendo’s unique business decisions, just
as the Switch eShop won’t be maintained indefinitely once its successor is released.
The moral of the story?
Nothing last forever.