A dedicated fan of the 3DS and Wii U has demonstrated their passion by keeping the eShops on both of these consoles open. The eShop for 3DS and Wii U closed earlier this week, but this fan has refused to let these shops die.
The closure of the 3DS and Wii U eShops was a sad day for fans of these systems as it cut off access to a well of digital games as well as content such as 3DS themes and free demos. If one opens the eShop on these systems right now, they will be met with mostly empty storefronts that only allow for redownloads of previously acquired software and the ability to download game updates. Nintendo did give players the chance to redeem download codes on 3DS and Wii U until April 3, but other than that, there is not much left to explore on these eShops.
This emptiness is not the case for one Nintendo fan named Gold_Poptart on Reddit who has kept the eShops open on their 3DS and Wii U since before they closed on March 27. They shared a photo of both of their systems' eShop pages on the 3DS and Wii U subreddits with both stores appearing as they did before their closure. At the time of writing, it has been nearly two days since the 3DS and Wii U eShops closed, meaning that if this user selected any of the icons on the eShop, the store would refresh and go to its current, barren state.
Fan replies to Gold_Poptart's posts were a mixture of praise for their dedication and confusion as to why someone would do this in the first place. When someone asked why they decided to leave the eShops open, Gold_Poptart simply responded, "Long love the eShop." It is unclear how long they intend to leave the eShops open though it is possible that these console's screens may experience burn-in, a concern that remains with the Nintendo Switch though the YouTube channel WULFF DEN showed that it takes 3,000 hours for screen burn-in to occur on the Nintendo Switch OLED.
Both the 3DS and the Wii U have been discontinued for years and without their digital stores, there is now no official way to buy new games on these systems. However, the continued dedication of fans of these consoles shows that even with the eShops gone, the 3DS and Wii U are far from dead. This is further proven by the fact that there will be a new physical 3DS game from Limited Run Games, something that has many fans riled up in excitement. The 3DS and Wii U may no longer be supported actively, but there will likely still be plenty of fans to keep these systems alive.