The fight to stay online on 3DS and Wii U continues well over a month after the servers were supposed to shut down, but we're now down to the final four - all because one player's 3DS just crashed.
Just ahead of the planned Nintendo Network shutdown on April 8, two players called Fishguy6564 and Marioiscool246 set up a pair of bots in Mario Kart 7 to continually race against each other online. Those bots have been racing over and over again since that day. With the loss of the last Pokemon XY player on May 8, that left Fishguy6564 and Marioiscool246 as the only known 3DS players left online.
But yesterday, May 13, tragedy struck as Marioiscool246's 3DS froze, apparently on the Luigi's Mansion track. A total of 13,151 races were run, with 6495 won by Fishguy6564's bot and 6656 won by Marioiscool246's, according to the latter player's own estimate. I guess we now know how many races it takes to break Mario Kart 7.
- After shutting down the Wii U online services last year, Nintendo asks players not to use "unauthorized services" to replace them as they might pose "security risks"
- Wii U online replacement Pretendo says "we are committed to user safety" as Nintendo warns against using third-party alternatives to its dead servers
For anyone wondering, this is what my 3ds looked like when it froze while Mario Kart 7 was running during the month long lobby. pic.twitter.com/JIyCl0Ik5nMay 14, 2024
Fishguy6564 remains online, though now simply connected to an empty lobby. According to GaffsNotLaffs on Twitter, that leaves us with just four players on the Nintendo Network, counting the three other souls who are sitting on lonely Mario Maker, Splatoon, and Xenoblade Chronicles X connections. They've been dropping like flies in recent weeks though. As of May 5, eight final players remained, but that number's now already been halved. Godspeed to those who remain.
These are the 25 best Wii U games. (Yes, we managed to find 25!)
The Witcher 3 lead says "not many games" were trying to match the RPG back in 2015, and that meant "there was a risk" to making it in the first place
Balatro creator initially considered a Steam release in part to help "get a game developer job somewhere," and after 5 million sales I'd say he found one
