Submit a news tip



Wii U

Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze martian theme

If things had gone in a different direction, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze could have featured a martian theme.

The game ultimately starts out with the Snowmads freezing DK Island, and players go on a journey to take down Lord Fredrik. However, Retro Studios artists that worked on the title says that the martian theme was considered, albeit briefly.

3DS and Wii U online play – and overall online functionality – will soon come to an end. Earlier this week, Nintendo gave fans a final date as April 8 for shutdown timing.

Many Nintendo fans are playing Switch these days, but that doesn’t mean we should forget about 3DS and Wii U. While 3DS was the more popular system, Wii U had its own userbase and plenty of online games.

With the shutdown date looming, what are some of your memories playing online with 3DS and Wii U? Miiverse was taken offline further back, but what’d you think about that service? Let us know in the comments.

More: ,

3DS Wii U online play end date

Nintendo has provided an official shutdown date for 3DS and Wii U online play. This will go into effect on April 8, 2024 at 4 PM PT / 7 PM ET. Users are warned “that if an event occurs that would make it difficult to continue online services for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U software, Nintendo may have to discontinue services earlier than planned.”

This news doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Nintendo already gave fans a heads up back in October that it would be pulling the plug on 3DS / Wii U online support. April was already confirmed – we just didn’t have a specific date.

More:

Wii U 3DS online new accounts

December 24: As the shutdown date of online services approaches for Wii U and 3DS, it’s been detected that new users can no longer go online any games for Wii U and 3DS. Pretendo shared its findings in a recent blog post.

It seems the change was made sometime this month. Since this is a server side issue, there are no workarounds.


Epic Mickey director Warren Spector

Warren Spector acted as director on Epic Mickey – as well as its sequel. As a huge Disney fan, it was a big passion project for him.

Spector reflected on Epic Mickey and its initial reception while speaking with Venturebeat. As someone who worked on immersive sims before like Deus Ex, this was a big change in terms of what fans came to know him for. Specter said “gamers didn’t get it”, but he’s still “proud of Epic Mickey”.

Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze Cranky Kong

Some of you may recall that in 2013, former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime appeared at VGX to show off Cranky Kong in Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. VGX was the new take on the Spike Video Game Awards that ran for a decade prior. It only took place that single year – Geoff Keighley then went on to form The Game Awards.

Kit Ellis and Krysta Yang, who worked for Nintendo for over a decade, reflected on the whole thing in an episode of Kit & Krysta Podcast. Ellis started out by sharing the following, which goes into why the Cranky Kong news was chosen in the first place:

Wii U sales September 2023

Mat Piscatella, executive director and video game industry analyst at Circana (NPD), relayed a little sales tidbit about the Wii U today that we couldn’t resist sharing.

The console has been phased out for years with Switch now Nintendo’s primary device since 2017. Finding a Wii U at a retailer at this point is practically impossible – and the platform wasn’t exactly popular to begin with. However, as it turns out, a single new Wii U was sold in the U.S. last month. The last time a Wii U was sold in the states was in May 2022.

More:

Wii U 3DS online shutdown

Nintendo has announced the end of online support for 3DS and Wii U, with both platforms going offline in early April 2024. An exact date was not provided.

This is another nail in the coffin for both platforms following the closure of the eShops. Back in March, the 3DS and Wii U stores ended purchases and downloads of content such as demos.


Nintendo is continuing to update its maintenance schedule for the week of October 1, 2023, and even more sessions are now planned. Five different periods are currently lined up over the next few days

Here’s the full maintenance schedule for the week of October 1, 2023:

We have Nintendo’s maintenance schedule for the week of September 24, 2023. A couple of additional sessions are now planned for the start of October aside from what we reported on last week.

Here’s the full maintenance schedule for the week of September 24, 2023:


Manage Cookie Settings