Nintendo eShop Feature Being Retired Soon

Following its announcement from earlier in the year that Nintendo eShop support on the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS systems would end in March 2023, Nintendo has begun winding down some of the eShop’s associated features. One of those features will be retired on May 23rd and marks the first stage of the shutdown plans outlined by Nintendo whenever it made its announcement. On that day, Wii U and 3DS owners will no longer be able to add funds to their accounts on those platforms via credit card payments.

For those who may have missed the initial announcement, the details were shared within a page on Nintendo’s support site which lists the various steps that’ll lead to the total shutdown of the Nintendo eShop on the Wii U and 3DS platforms. The first step is the end of credit card usage on those devices.

“As of May 23, 2022, it will no longer be possible to use a credit card to add funds to an account in Nintendo eShop on Wii U or the Nintendo 3DS family of systems,” the support site said.

With the option to fund your wallet on those platforms soon to be removed, your only method of adding funds to the eShop via a Wii U or 3DS will be to use a physical Nintendo eShop Card. That will work until August 29th when that option is also removed, but even after that happens, you’ll still be able to use download codes to acquire things on your systems.

Or, if you have a Nintendo Switch and your various accounts and logins are linked correctly, you can use the wallet balance shared between the console generations to purchase things on the 3DS or Wii U.

“Users who link their Nintendo Network ID wallet (used with Wii U and the Nintendo 3DS family of systems) with their Nintendo Account wallet (used with the Nintendo Switch family of systems) can use the shared balance to purchase content on any of these systems until late March 2023,” Nintendo said. “After that, the balance can only be used to purchase content for the Nintendo Switch family of systems.”

By March 2023, purchases and free downloads will be retired entirely on the 3DS and Wii U systems, so get some use out of them while you can as the various eShop futures continue to wind down.