Online services for Nintendo Wii U and 3DS consoles to be shut down today

As announced back in October of last year, the online services for Nintendo Wii U and 3DS are going offline today, April 8, at 4 PM PDT. This means you won't be able to play with your friends online anymore. But this isn't the first time the company has closed servers for its gaming consoles.

The classic Nintendo Wii offered a good number of titles that allowed players to play with other gamers online. It even had a dedicated shop that provided access to WiiWare games and many retro games from NES, SNES, and Nintendo 64 through Virtual Console.

However, both the services for the Nintendo Wii shut down, with the multiplayer servers closing shutters in 2014 and the shop in 2019. Similarly, the online services of the DS gaming console were shut down in 2014. Now, it's time for the Wii U and 3DS to face the same fate.

While this means that you won't be able to play any game online, you can still play the titles offline. Another good part is that players will still be able to download any update required to play offline or redownload any DLCs they may have already purchased. Nintendo hasn't given an exact date on when these may also come to an end, but it said that these will remain "for the foreseeable future."

It's worth mentioning that most of the Nintendo Wii U and 3DS titles don't put much focus on the online experience. The multiplayer aspect of the games is basically considered complementary. That's why these titles are widely emulated in other machines (ROG Ally Z1 Extreme curr. $599.99 on Best Buy).

That said, Nintendo has put up a small FAQ page on its official website about the matter. Give it a visit if you have any questions about what the shutdown of the Wii U and 3DS online services means for you.