It must be the National Day of Dead Systems over at Nintendo today, as two major changes have come to the now defunct Wii U and 3DS. First off, as of today, August 29, 2022, Nintendo removed the ability to add funds via prepaid cards to the soon-to-be closing eShop across about both systems. In addition, the company has also rolled out a new system update to both the Wii U (ver. 5.5.6 U) and also the 3DS (ver. 11.16.0-48U).
While the arrival of both system updates is a bit surprising, the patch notes of both of them are not. In both instances, Nintendo has simply labeled these as being “stability updates”—a fairly generic description that it has often used for minor firmware updates, even up to today with some updates for the Nintendo Switch.
That said, well-known data miner “OatmealDome” on Twitter released some of their findings for both updates. According to the data, on 3DS changes were made to the system’s web browser, the friends system, the firmware itself and the eShop. On Wii U, the changes came to the Wii U Menu and the User Settings menu.
Specific details were not discovered, as of the time of publication.
As OatmealDome points out in their tweet about the 3DS’ system update, this was likely done to coincide with the changes happening to the eShop. After all, the timing couldn’t be more “coincidental”, if you want to call it that.
Nintendo stopped producing Wii U consoles in 2017, just ahead of the Switch’s launch. This makes it the shortest-lived Nintendo console to date, having a production run of a mere 4.5 years. The 3DS fared a lot better, but never managed to achieve the monstrous success of its predecessor. It ceased production back in late 2020; a move which was notable, since at the time, Nintendo adamantly stated on numerous occasions that it had no plans to axe the handheld anytime soon.
Now, all of Nintendo’s focus is being centered around the Switch. The hybrid console recently surpassed 111 million units sold worldwide, making it the second Nintendo home console to break past the 100 million milestone, and this continues to cement it as one of Nintendo’s most successful system ever. Really, it still has the potential to be the most successful system ever for the Japanese console maker, if the next few years prove to continue to go well.
Speculation continues to swirl surrounding the illusive, yet long-rumored arrival of a “Nintendo Switch Pro”. The company keeps denying any claims of new hardware on the horizon, but only time will tell what’s truly in store. For now, however, it’s clearly focused on streamlining its operations to facilitate its one active platform, hence is why the remaining Wii U/3DS services are slowly being winded down.
Sources: Twitter / Go Nintendo / Nintendo
