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You know Nintendo's gone too far when Arlo unironically talks about """piracy""", without the whole "I'd NEVER tell you to do that!" bit

“You can’t steal an item from a store that doesn’t sell that item.” Is a brilliant way to put it. I’m using that from now on.

I just wanna say, props to Capcom for lowering the price of their games so much on the Eshop closure. I bought so many of their games for such a cheap price

Huge respect for zoning right into the pirating aspect of this topic, too many people dance around this out of fear Nintendo will put them on the naughty list

Rest in piece 3DS/WiiU eshop bag guy. You and your great, games may be gone, but you will never be forgotten.

2 decades of dual screen gaming now a product of its era.

Holy cow, Arlo talking about "piracy" and mentioning the "3DS is easy to hack" meme. This is great, thank you. You're absolutely right! Well done.

It’s even worse that they have embraced subscription services and that we have to pay endlessly into a service now that could go away at any time just to play the classic games.

That part of “pirating” from a store that doesn’t exist is a REALLY good point XD. You really can’t “pirate” a game from a service where you no longer can get the game

Seeing Arlo mad about this brings a smile to my face. WHY THEY GOTTA MASSACRE MY BOI THE ESHOP LIKE THAT

An Eshop closes, gives moral liberty to pirate

On the upside, it is now perfectly morally acceptable for me to emulate any wii u or 3ds eshop game! Nice job, Nintendo.

And this is why we have independent uploaders, who maintain the survival of these games through unofficial mean, to ensure that the games remain accessible. Kudos to them!

Couldnt agree more man it sucks to see game preservation taking such a dive

Fans were so distraught about the 3DS eShop shutdown that one person gave the idea to include the 3DS eShop Bag in their fangames. So much so that the next update for CTGP-7 will have the little fella as an alternate character to race as. We've also got the music, SFXs and some of the graphics used in the 3DS eShop (including the eShop Bag him/herself, kinda going for a NiGHTS situation here) archived on both The VG Resource and here on KZfaq. The eShop's legacy *will* live on. Regardless if Nintendo actually cares or not.

hey yo arlo i hope u see this comment cause like i really feel like shouting out ur mega skills with puppeteering. like i know its pretty much an unspoken rule to not bring up the fact that youre a dude behind the puppet, but honestly part of what makes that so easy is the fact that your skills are so ridiculously good. you put so much effort into making the puppet express in realistic and believable ways, and it seriously brings to mind the stories of how muppet set workers would mic kermit puppets instead of voice actors because they would forget that it wasn't just kermit delivering the lines. ive never been into puppeteering but ive got major respect for the clear reverence youve got for your art form. keep on keepin on my man, youre a master of your craft!

I LITERALLY just typed in "eShop closure", and then got the notification for this video. The definition of literally PERFECT timing.

I modded my 3ds a few days ago and it's one of the best decisions I've made. I have access to every digital only game, I can play a lot of JRPGs that are like $100+ on the aftermarket, and I can even play every GBA and DS games right from the home menu. You can even do some amazing stuff like get custom themes for the home screen or play fan translations and rom hacks. Considering this, it was crazy for me to see all of the people rushing out to get all of these digital games. They're literally giving Nintendo money to screw them over. Modding is the way to go.

"You can't steal an item from a store that doesn't sell that item." Thank you Mr. Arlo for a great new quote that perfectly encapsulates my stance on emulation.

"you can't steal an item from a store that doesn't sell that item" is the best analogy I've heard for ethical piracy

The problem is that Nintendo doesn't offer any alternative for 95% of games on those eShops. Give us an option to download those games on the Switch's eShop and we're golden.

In an era when you can save everything They erase everything😢😢

The shift in opinion on privacy is not just because of Nintendo. Lots of streaming shows never get physical release now. And many are platform exclusives. So if that company decides to remove the show they only way to watch it is illegally. This has happened to Infinity Train season 3 and 4. They were HBO max exclusives that never got dvd release and got pulled from the platform.

I like how you talked about tracking down old games and having to track them down. When we found out that 3DS eshop was closing, I wanted to get a copy of Luigi’s Mansion 1. But I didn’t wanna pay 60 dollars for it off of ebay. So I was sad and cried myself to sleep. But then a few weeks ago, I went to GameStop because I needed a new Xbox controller. Then I saw they had Luigi’s mansion 1 for 15 bucks. I was so happy

I don't think I've ever seen such a widespread emotional response to a store closing. Very interesting

This whole eshop situation single handedly pushed me into modding my 3ds and wiiu. Never did ANYTHING with modding and had no expierence at all but it really is "surprisingly easy" the memes are not lying LOL

Arlo's rage is so contagious. I love it.

So ends the reign of Arlo. After suggesting he would download ROMs he didn't already purchase, the blue monster was taken out by Nintendo DMCA Snipers... it was great while it lasted.

At least we got a wave of cool art of the 3DS eShop bag guy.

"You can't steal an item from a store that doesn't sell that item." - Arlo

I’m too lazy to look up the exact quote, but I’m always reminded of that old Gabe Newell saying. Piracy is an issue of proper services not being provided. If old games were being sold for a fair price in an easily accessible way, the overwhelming majority of people would go for that option over piracy and emulation.

Two things I hope Nintendo does going forward: 1. They need to keep the same storefront on all their consoles from now on like Sony and Microsoft do. Sony didn't need to close their old stores because it's all one store. You can still buy stuff on the PS3 store to this day. 2. The next console should be a hybrid model like the current Switch, but allow for the the handheld model to communicate with the dock wirelessly, enabling for dual screen options with the TV. This will allow DS, 3DS, and Wii U games that use the dual screen to still be played. And they can make new dual screen games if they want. And then I hope they just stick with that model going forward. No new weird gimmicks. Edit: A third thing I hope for is backwards compatibility with the Switch like what Sony is doing now and Microsoft has been doing all along. Keeping the same storefront would make it easier, so hopefully Nintendo can finally learn from their competition.

My brain subconsciously conviced itself the puppet is the real Arlo whenever I don't actively think about it lol

RIP 3DS Nintendo E-shop 2011-2023 You where my childhood 😔

It's really sad how many games are actually being lost because of this, some of these games never had a physical release so they will probably be lost to time. 😔

One thing about this, and timing, is that the Dolphin emulator is being listed on Steam (which sounds crazy for an emulator). Also Nintendo has this weird habit of re-releasing legacy content, but for a limited time. Like for the 3D Mario All Stars game and the English version of the first NES Fire Emblem game. I can only hope Nintendo makes a effort to revamp digital (and purchasable) versions of their older content.

13:22 Not to mention, can you actually call it stealing, if the resource in question is fundamentally infinite? These games aren't really physical pieces that require materials to make in order to keep selling (game cartridges being an exception), they're bits of data that can be copied time after time.

Here’s the problem tho, these eShops ARENT going away, not really. As of right now, you can still download games that you have already purchased. All the games are still there, the servers are still up. All that REALLY happened is Nintendo removed the privilege for us to GIVE THEM MONEY. That’s it. Sure, the servers will go down one day, and then no one will be able to download games anymore, but until then the games just float there in cyberspace taunting us.

In my opinion, I feel like it's too soon for the 3DS, rather than the Wii U. Usually between shop closures, it occurs around 5-7 years after said console had been discontinued. The DS and Wii got discontinued in 2012 and it's shops closed in 2017 and 2019, respectively. The Wii U got discontinued in 2016, and it's shops lasted until 2023, around the same amount of time as the Wii's. The 3DS got discontinued in September 2020, and it's shops closes less than 3 years after the fact. I get the 3DS lasted longer out of all of them, but it's ridiculous how short the 3DS's eShop lasted after the console stopped being produced.

THANK YOU! If there is no official way to buy something.... IT ISN'T PIRACY!

Putting mourning and emulation aside, it’s good to see a fellow Picross 3D enthusiast. I’ve completed all 4 files on it 100%, and I’ve even erased a file once or twice to go through it again. As for Round 2, I did download it last year, and it’s still pretty fun.

I see a fellow enjoyer of putting hats and glasses on any item one can get their hands on. I approve, Arlo.

Oh, Nintendo is giving us other options alright, and for once, I finally went to the dark side and I’ve never been happier. CFW & HShop on my 3DS just day one has been incredible.

Its bad, I’d rather it be open, but the silver lining for me personally was that this pushed me to play some games that I kept putting off. (Namely all the laytons, the gamecube Zelda remakes, and spirit tracks)

Dang, that section on piracy was really thought provoking. "You can't steal an item from a store that doesn't sell that item." That's... so true, actually. It'll be fascinating to see if the public perception of "piracy" starts to change as more and more stuff shuts down. The Switch eShop is LOADED with small exclusives, and quality of the games be darned, the majority of those will vanish permanently once the shop closes. And what happens then? Will Nintendo really expect everyone to buy and download all of the good games before the shop closes? And if so, will we really wade through hundreds of thousands of games on a laggy storefront with no review system just to find the games we want while also having to worry about storage space? Or will we just pirate any we learn about after the fact? I'm not quite sure yet, but... it will be interesting.

Buckle up me hearties! Dolphin, Cemu, and Hshop shall still give us that wonderful horizon!

It's not just the eShops that were closed. Virtual Console has now officially died aswell.

5:30 It's ironic, Nintendo tried to shutdown Another Metroid 2 Remake because they were making their own Metroid 2 remake and didn't want the free Metroid 2 remake to overshadow their official remake, so they blocked AM2R's creator from uploading and updating his fanmade remake; now fastforward to today, and Nintendo's own Metroid 2 remake (Metroid: Samus Returns) is no longer being updated and sold on any official capacity, and is stuck on the Nintendo 3DS. So much for Nintendo trying to take down AM2R in favor of them selling Metroid: Samus Returns.

I have almost 300 games downloaded on my 3DS and over 200 on my Wii U. They were great systems.

The 360 and PS3 stores are still up and running from 2006 but the Wii U and 3DS eshops from 2011/2012 are gone. I wouldn't be surprised if we're having this same discussion about the Switch by 2030.

People seem to forget that these are the last Virtual Console systems and that when the Switch dies out all your subscription based games will be lost and will never be able to be bought legally again since you'll always be in some sort of subscription base system just to play old games, Nintendo has made sure that this is how they want to preserve their old legacy games, not by buying them for yourself but instead through a means of a money based system with preservation being handled by them and choosing what gets to be put into said system.

I feel like being too into the corporate Nintendo ecosystem makes people say things like "Yea it can't stay open forever and yea it costs money" and totally forget about the fact that there are community supported projects to keep these sorts of titles alive that basically do last forever. When you remove the logic of profit literally anything becomes possible. There are massive online repositories of Nintendo games being maintained by rag tag scrap teams that also have to deal with dodging lawsuits and relocating data to other countries constantly, and some of these things have been online for 20 fucking years. Nintendo is making a strategic money-making decision, not a logistical tough-call that they regrettably "have to" do. They _do not care_ that these games are disappearing, because preserving their artistic legacy is NOT their modus operandi.

9:00 Nintendo gave you the opportunity to care. They gave you 10+ years to care. They gave you platforms to support and try out. You all were pushing the Wii U and 3DS out the door on MULTIPLE occasions before and during the Switch. Why should they speak on a past system when all their focus is on the current system? Does it stink that the shops closed? Yes. But giving the impression that Nintendo should say something on this beyond the year-long notice that the stores were closing? Nope. Can't go along with that.

Arlo nailed it about emulating games at the end. I've got my steam deck and PC. I'm going to download roms of these games I've paid for (some I've paid for multiple times). I'm going to establish a nice little permanent library for myself for my DS and 3DS, because I can't pay for those games anymore. Even though I honestly would, if I could. Also because increasing the resolution of those games makes them look incredible, holy cow.

The original 3DS eshop theme gets me so nostalgic that I almost want to cry

i loved kirby's epic yarn, but i didn't even know kirby's extra epic yarn existed until now

It just feels like nintendo is fundamentally a toy company and that's their mindset. Not a media company with a library of historical significance. No, they just happen to make toys and who cares if it's out of print, you'll play it when we say it's okay to do so.

it seems like an easy solution to this would be to provide download codes on the nintendo website, and then have e-shop be download codes only.

Side tangent and I'm sorry but that angry Arlo in the thumbnail looks SO DAMN CUTE for some reason. Those brows. The jaws. Everything. It's so cute I kind of wish he'd get angry more often

"You *can't* steal an item from a store that *doesn't* sell that item; it's not possible." ~Arlo, 13:21 Easily my favorite quote of the video, will definitely be using that going forward.

That's the big thing that frustrates me about Nintendo: they don't seem to care about people wanting to play their older games. They just memory hole them and say too bad you're gonna have to find what you're looking for on eBay.

I gotta say, the puppeteering has gotten really good!

“The Wii U has a very sleek modern design out the box but a few sessions later it’s right up finger print avenue” - Scott the Woz

The term you're looking for around minute 13 is abandonware. The creators have abandoned the software, there is nothing longer any way to obtain it from the source, so the only method of getting the software is through people dedicated to software preservation. Bless their souls.

Emulation is the digital equivalent of archeology at this point.

aww, that's a shame, the option to extend the seafaring metaphor was there "it's not piracy, its salvage" good video, like always

I am really really really hoping we’ll soon get to see an “Arlo is blown away by everything his modded 3DS can do and how amazing it is” video

l'm glad arlo spoke at lengths about emulating 3ds games, because it really Does just make sense to do in this scenario. There's still a demand for those games but nintendo explicitly told us they dont want to be part of that market anymore, leaving us with emulation as the most viable option. Even if they get mad/sad about us emulating, maybe it'll get them to not take down the online stores in the future,, thats on them not on us. It kinda feels like how workers can only benefit from breaking through the "dont discuss salaries with co-workers" taboo, if we have options to empower ourselves as consumers we should embrace those with open arms!

Waited until the last minute, because that's the only way I operate, but I managed to download everything I wanted from the e-Shop. That said, I imagine something that I missed will be brought to my attention at some point, so I'm really glad I have an extra 3DS just sitting around that I can, uh, do stuff with. Like look at.

I bring a “just pirate it” energy to the conversation that Nintendo fans don’t really like

We are seeing the gaming industry make the same mistake of the early movie industry. Most of the earliest era films are lost forever due to no effort for preservation by those that made them. The Library of Congress estimates that at least 75% of all silent films ever made are lost forever, and Martin Scorsese's Film Foundation estimates that about 90% of movies from before 1929 are as well. It's a real shame to not be able to go back and look at the roots of where things came from.

I think the argument that it's difficult to maintain the legacy digital stores loses a lot of its weight when we remember that Sony was successfuly bullied into keeping up the PS3 store and Microsoft has never once announced plans to shutter the 360 store. To be fair, those storefronts have games that can download to modern consoles.

"If they refuse to let you buy, then piracy you shall try" - Captain Oogway

This bothered me quite a bit more than I thought. I perused the eShop one last time and discovered Radiant Historia had a demo. I downloaded it and played it. Decided to try to buy in the last hour. Couldn't figure out how to add funds. Then it was too late.

People don't really grasp how Property Ownership on a moral and intellectual level works. The core of the idea of owning something is that you're the only person with the sole right to use and create copies of the thing copyrighted because it was the product of your mind and your labor. That is literally what the word copyright means, *COPY* -- *RIGHT* , as in, "the right to copy or produce more iterations of a given object". Even if it is an object very easy to copy (a unique set of electrical signals, the ones and zeros encoded either on a ROM chip, a optical disk, a flash drive, or a magnetic hard disk drive), it's still a physical object that the original creators get to chose whether they retain the right to copyright or let it enter the public domain. The term piracy refers both to the physical theft of physical objects (historically in the context of a pirating ship that attacked and robbed from other ships), as well as *SOFTWARE piracy* (the unauthorized use or reproduction of another's work), which is technically a type of counterfeiting (making an imitation of a genuine product with the intent to steal or replace an original). Counterfeiting is still illegal for many reasons, not the least of which it destroys the value of genuine original copies of the object in question , i.e. causing prices to drop by increasing the supply in the market (meaning you're not merely hurting the original producer, you're also hurting all the people who bought legitimate copies of the object in question by reducing the amount of money they can ask for when selling it). It's not merely a "the original producer/store is gone" issue. Piracy was one of the major factors that killed the SEGA Dreamcast for example while it was on the market, which demonstrated why Nintendo was always reluctant to embrace optical disks and went with mini-DVDs and avoided open-source DVDs when they felt compelled to adopt those storage mediums. As for why Nintendo talks about "always looking towards the new thing", the answer why is simple. There is very little money to be made in reselling old game software. All one has to do is look at video game consoles with built-in backwards compatibility and the playing habits of people who owned those consoles. Scientific studies show that very few people play old games on new hardware, the overwhelming vast majority of play time is playing new games on that new hardware. The SEGA Genesis had backwards compatibility with the Master System through an adapter, it ultimately lost to the SNES. The Atari 7200 had backwards compatibility with the Atari 2600, it was not even a factor during the NES' era. The PlayStation 2 had backwards compatibility with the PS1 and sales of PS1 games still fell off a cliff in mid-2000 in the runup to the PS2's launch, in anticipation of the software the PS2 was going to launch with. The Wii had backwards compatibility with the GameCube, but a majority of Wiis were never used to play GameCube games (physically impossible given only 21 million GameCubes were sold and the Wii sold 101 million units), particularly because everyone wanted to play specifically Wii Sports, and the average grandma or non-gamer had no interest in Nintendo's legacy franchises. The launch edition of the PS3 had full backwards compatibility with the PS1 and the PS2, but no one cared because the price was absurd for the console and it didn't have the games at launch that the Xbox 360 did. One of the other reasons why there is little money in reselling old games is the simple fact that the audiences for games in general has grown, but interest in older games is, at best, a flat or nearly flat line hovering at the levels that they were at during that console's lifespan in the past. There are a lot of new gamers in the modern era, but only a fraction of them have historical interest in going back to games with more jagged graphics, low-fi compressed audio, shorter overall game length, and a wide lack of quality of life features people are used to today. How many Gen Z/Gen Alpha kids are going to play the original Crash Bandicoot games after finding out it has a lives system, meaning its Game Over once you run out on one of the games' more infamous hard sections? So the short answer to all of this is, you make old stuff, you're going to only attract the niche market you had from that time period when you made that old stuff. If Nintendo went back and went all in on reproductions of their earliest Hanafuda cards, how much of an audience would they have outside the nine million or so people worldwide who are fanatics for any merchandise the company produces? The company is focused on Saturo Iwata's Blue Ocean Strategy right now, so there would have to be a massive sea change in the company's direction and policies before they take their eyes of all the untapped market of people who aren't already gamers and would could be enticed into playing games with new games that have more quality of life features and appeal for them.

They’re just doing the Disney strategy like closing, and opening the vault over and over so that way they can cash in each time the vault opens like look at that little Mario collection that released for a limited time for a couple of months like I think it was last year or the year before for the switch and then they just stopped a perfect example of opening the vault and then shortly after closing it.

Arlo: “I’m gonna have to pirate it!” Everyone else: “first time?”

It could be classified as abandonware and I know The Completionist downloaded all the games and is donating them to video game archive.

This just makes me want more Arlo videos where he interacts with stuff. Something about him dusting off the Wii U gamepad was oddly nice to watch. Then again. I'm just a fan of puppetry.

The 3DS eshop shutting down feels even worse then the Wii U one since the 3DS was only discontinued less then 3 years ago….

The thing about emulation is that emulators are a pain in the butt to use a lot of the time (especially when you get into disc based consoles) and sometimes they don't work properly or you'll have to use different settings for each game you play. So, I feel like most people want to play on official hardware, it's Nintendo that doesn't.

R.i.P to all the people who didnt download pokebank before it closed

"Arlo with eyebrows can't hurt you he's not real." The thumbnail: _Allow me to introduce _*_Angrylo_*

So… Arlos are able to breathe in space? This is insane lore.

Jirard is a chad for buying every single eshop game.

Don't worry. There will always be a way to access these games from people who actually care about preserving them. The 3DS (and its games) will never die, no thanks to Nintendo.

Captain Arlo bravely sails the seven seas!!!

It's so weird to think that the DS era is now officially dead. I grew up with DS, DS Lite, DSi, and 3DS. I even still play on my 3DS XL sometimes and it feels like yesterday when I first got it and tried Face Raiders or watched Bear Shark on 3DS Video. By the time I get kids, those will be their first game consoles. Dead or not.

I have to admit that even though I have 0 interest in NSO, if I did have it, I would probably try some of them. Hope some of them can make a comeback, either through NSO, the shop, or preferably both.

Hitting all the points on the issue! It's very sad :(

Nintendo: * Hates emulation * Also Nintendo: * Thanos snaps half its legacy library out of existence, making emulation the only way to access them *

What is that game at 16:12? I know i saw the trailer for it a while ago and wanted to get it but now I've completely forgotten what it was called!

When you realize that because of this closure, we will NEVER get Gen 3 Pokémon Games, Gen 4 Pokémon games, gen 5 Pokémon games virtually like we did with Gen 1 and gen 2....Sun's getting real low. But what is grief if not love persevering?

The pirate eshops still work, it seems

I refuse to panic buy stuff. Not because I can just emulate it but because I don't wanna reward a company with a ton of cash for closing down something that was good

Y'know, it wasnt until this video that I realized SO many of these games have just become abandonware. Like what a word to describe things, a piece of interactive art that human beings worked hard to create, no matter the end quality, the decent thing to do is to keep it around to be appreciated. To enjoy it for years to come like an heirloom toy or oral tradition. It wasn't originally ours, but now we hold the responsibility to care for it and share it with other humans to keep that art alive. (And the less poetic disclaimer: they may still be under copyright but at this point they don't seem to care enough about it for that to matter except for being petty)

Just watching the intro, would you consider making a compilation video of all the Arlos' adventures throughout the multiverse?

Hopefully they integrate all the eshop systems together so that they can be supported simultaniously. Also, second screen for switch 2.

They probably want people to forget about the Wii U asap so people don’t say “Oh, I think I’ll go finally buy that one Wii U game I wanted to play” and then find out their NAND flash failed from their console sitting on the shelf unpowered for years. I know I’m worried about my Wii U sitting in its box now.