It’ll never happen, but I think codifying a concept similar to “abandonware” in law would be a huge step forward. If a person can’t buy or rent a piece of media, then it should be able to be freely shared.

Maybe add a short time-out period in case there are momentary hiccups with a creator.

Make it apply not just to videogames, but books, movies, music, etc.

After all, if you can’t buy it, you’re not depriving the creator of revenue.

Actually, looking back at what I wrote, I think maybe I’m just describing the Copyright system as it was originally envisioned before times were extended to such ridiculous lengths. Whoops.

Fortunately there is a fan run project that's working on recreating the online services for these consoles/games, in the same way that Wiimmfi has gotten the DS and Wii's multiplayer functionality up and running. See the Pretendo project here:

https://pretendo.network/

It's not exactly feature perfect yet, but 2024 gives them time to fix up many of the features they haven't gotten working, and hopefully expand support to more games.

This an evidence of gaping holes in digital consumer rights. People bought eShop software and physical hardware that they can no longer use or update.

Regulators should force companies to open source any games and associated server software that consumers paid to "own", yet companies are no longer willing to maintain.

This is sad. I really wish consoles were more open platforms than they are today so people didn't have to jailbreak their devices to run stuff like pretendo and install homebrew. Also imagine how cool a replacement E-Shop would be.

Someone really needs to work on creating a open console or even one with a form factor similar to the 3DS/DS. I mean imagine how cool a analogue pocket DS would be or maybe even a fantasy console based on the DS. But regardless I really wish consoles weren't so locked down.

This will not help a jot with online play, but it’s worth noting that it’s very very easy to softmod any model of 3DS: https://3ds.hacks.guide/

The 3DS has a fantastic library but a good chunk of it is very difficult to obtain these days—either because it was only available digitally, or because prices for used physical copies are unreasonable.

It’s sad that Nintendo don’t give a shit about preservation past their ability to sell old games over and over, but if I can no longer give the creator money for a game I’m of the opinion that largely absolves any immorality of piracy.

As sad as this news makes me for the preservation of eShop stuff, the modding community tends to rally around Nintendo products and I have pretty high faith that things will be preserved one way or another by the awesome work of modders and the emulation community.

It's a sad state of affairs for copyright law, but generally by the time Nintendo shuts down "official" access to content for a console generation, rom files are readily available from a few google searches and a relatively well-thought-out and simple modding process for the hardware.

There are many first party nintendo games and remakes that still haven't made it to newer consoles like the Switch yet. Hopefully Nintendo comes up with better backwards compatibility in the future for current Switch titles, but assuming they won't as they often don't, piracy and emulation tend to fill in the gaps pretty well in my experience.

>It will still be possible to use online services for the following software but that may also end at some point in the future.

>Pokémon Bank

I have 0 hopes tbh, the writing is on the wall.

Pokemon Bank is an awesome feature, basically allowing you to play through the whole franchise from Pokemons across all games...

I think having pure data IP protected by copyright should require said IP to be uploaded to a national database in each country. After the copyright elapses, everyone can simply download from that database.

Sure, there are a lot of works to copyright every year. That's a lot of data. But we need to save all of that somewhere, so it might as well be some place that can't go bankrupt.

On the positive side: Players will be able to download patches and redownload games purchased from the eShop for the foreseeable future.

The interest surrounding these issues suggests to me that PC gaming is going to win greater market share. Steam placed a big bet on this well before the Deck, but they were too early.

The ability to upgrade, and still have easy access to your long-standing library, will be increasingly appealing to consumers, at least those who aren't merely casual. Either consoles will go from glorified locked-down PCs to actual PCs, or gaming PCs will just resemble consoles more through quality-of-life features.

Piracy is ethical when purchasing doesnt equal owning.

This is yet another case of falsely advertised "ownership", that is really a rental.

Piracy is the only real alternative

Every generation I wonder when it’s worth it to buy games digitally so I can transfer them over to the following console.

So far I have yet to see Nintendo make any effort and it really should be a crime. These things are literal PC’s and tablets, there is no technical obstacle anymore.

Aww the 3DS is still a very nice retro console where you can play anything from the Nintendo store. I'm assuming they mean the nintendo store for 3DS will shut down then?

I gave mine to my nephew a while back, it's probably broken by now. But it's still sad.

Sometimes I just feel like playing some classic games like Castlevania, Metroid and Earthbound.

This is way more common with phones but they handle it better. The iPhone 4 came out the same year as the 3DS. Consoles have to prioritize cross compatibility to keep competing with the Steam Deck.

I hope this help make the could thing vanish