As of March 27, 2023, it will be impossible to make new purchases or download free content from the 3DS and Wii U eShop. Only reinstalling previously paid software will be possible. This is quite old news actually, the official announcement page says that they are giving a 1-year warning until the service is shut down. Some features such as adding pre-paid funds to the 3DS/Wii U eShop have already been disabled for nearly 10 months now.
I grew up in the age of the DS Lite and 7th generation consoles (Wii, PS3, Xbox 360). Back then, buying games from stores like GameStop was the only practical option. Digital distribution was in its infancy. But as time passed, physical media began to dwindle. Everything was moving to a digital download system.
And now in the midst of the 9th generation consoles, digital distribution rules supreme. GameStop has been reduced to a sliver of its former self. Physical game buyers have become a niche audience. Sony offers a disc-less digital download only PS5. PC gaming probably hasn’t seen a physical game copy for decades. Flash storage development has expanded SD card capacity to terabytes.
While the world has become normalized to digital distribution, there are some troubling aspects behind its conveniences. I’m not a fan of digital distribution for many reasons, and Nintendo shutting down their digital stores was a wonderful reminder why.
Lost games
There are games that were exclusively released digitally for the 3DS and Wii U. Those titles disappear for good once the servers are down. The only way to save them is for someone to get a copy onto a system and dump the game by hacks, and Nintendo does everything they can to prevent this.
Nintendo is notorious for being insanely aggressive with copyright and IP. They were at war with YouTube uploads of VGM, sent cease and desist letters to fan-made games, and even went to take down images of Mario that were on a website used purely to decorate digital game cover art. The company viciously defends its property and has no interest in preserving the games on its digital stores.
Nintendo can’t be completely blamed, they’re a business that wants to cut costs. There likely aren’t many 3DS or Wii U users left, so it makes sense to them to kill the servers. Sony also received a lot of backlash for attempting to close the PSP, PS3, and Vita stores for the same reasons. They changed their minds, only closing the PSP store for now.
Steam developer Valve is also in this predicament. There are concerns about “what happens to my Steam library after Steam shut down?”. Steam libraries of some people can accrue to thousands of dollars over years. Will Steam shutting down mean this is unrecoverable, or will an archiving method be provided? Valve has said they will support gamers, but of course there is no guarantee.
Illusion of digital ownership
The eShop closure reveals digital distribution’s big issue: when you download something digitally, you don’t own it. From games to software like Microsoft Office, to even the OS itself. You don’t buy these programs, you buy a license to use these programs. And the status of that license is completely up to the proprietor. If they don’t want you to use their services, they can easily take away your access.
Ironically, a shift to digital distribution should have been a technological liberation. Computer files do not need resource to build. They can be duplicated and shared infinitely. If 1000 music CDs had to be made for 1000 different buyers, one single audio file could totally replace the work needed to build those CDs. There’s no need to make CDs, ship them to stores across many countries, and spend money on packaging.
The potential freedom of digital distribution scares publishers and sellers, which is why the current system is so locked down. Instead of buying a digital copy that can be freely duplicated and controlled, you’re buying licenses that grant temporary access to something. And those licenses are usually tied to digital accounts, which also depend on a company for you to access.
If an online-dependent game’s servers go offline for good, and you can no longer play, did you really own that game or account? If a downloaded YouTube Premium video gets deleted because its no longer on YouTube servers, did you really download that video? If your Google account was deleted, and you used Google Drive extensively, I hope you kept local copies of important files.
You should consider your stake of ownership of digital things. The subscription services you use, the EULAs and ToS you agreed to, and the DRM that is in your software. At any point in time for some reason, you may no longer have access to something you thought you owned. That’s the nature of digital distribution.
How to own things
Getting away from digital distribution is much harder now than years ago. Physical media may have disappeared, but it is still easy to get files that you actually own.
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Keep physical copies when possible
This is mostly relevant for video games. If you have the physical disc, you can play it whenever you want to. If the digital store selling the game goes down, that has no effect on you. Physical game copies have allowed people to keep playing them natively on the 40-year-old NES.
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Download files the proper way
Don’t rely on in-app “download” features like in music streaming services. Find an actual standalone file of a song on the internet to download. If there’s a show on Netflix you really like, consider downloading an independent copy.
In the future, a day will come when the 3DS and Wii U eShop close for good. Purchased software will no longer be available to re-download, remaining features like online play will shut down, and these systems will completely reach EOL. Beyond this point, anyone who wants to play a game on these systems will only be able to do so with a physical copy.
This is the likely fate of many digital distribution platforms in the world. It’s good to anticipate these distant events, because the consequences for unprepared people may be devastating. In a world where physical ownership is becoming less common, retaining your ability to own something is critical.