Back in April this year, Nintendo officially closed down the servers for 3DS and Wii U games. As a result of that, official access to Nintendo Network functionality was gone for good, with every affected game only being playable online through third party services.

Yet despite that apparent closure, this wasn’t technically the end of the road. Oh no, while new players were unable to connect online in these games…

Existing players weren’t kicked out of lobbies or forced to disconnect.

As a result of that, they could technically stay connected for as long as they wanted, so long as they never quit the game or let it crash. Mario Kart 7’s servers may not have accepted new connections anymore, but they were still technically usable for the two or three people left online.

So, a small group of fans tried to do just that. They kept their online lobbies open indefinitely, and refused to quit unless forced to by Nintendo. That way, they could technically preserve the system, and keep games like Mario Kart 7, Mario Maker and Pokémon going for as long as the systems would allow.

Unfortunately, those times are now finally over. Why? Because as mentioned on Twitter today, the last ever Mario Kart 7 player has now been kicked offline, leaving Nintendo Network completely empty at last. Here’s the post about it from said player, dataminer and modder Fishguy6564:

It's over. Rest in peace, Nintendo Network. pic.twitter.com/rlbFZVGJ0q

— Fishguy6564 (@fishguy6564) November 4, 2024

So yeah, the 3DS and Wii U era is now truly dead. Their online systems are no more, and there’s no one in the world still playing them on Nintendo’s servers.

Ah well, it was a a long run. Godspeed guys, and thanks for keeping the 3DS era alive for just that bit longer than Nintendo was anticipating!

Source:

It’s over. Rest in peace, Nintendo Network (Fishguy6564 on Twitter)