Mario Golf, Gunman Clive hit Wii U in latest eShop update

By Danny Cowan Published September 3, 2015

mario golf gunman clive eshop update header — Image used with permission by copyright holder

This week’s Nintendo eShop update brings the N64-era golfing sim Mario Golf to the Wii U along with a selection of other retro-inspired standouts.

Originally released for the Nintendo 64 in 1999, Mario Golf assembles the Mushroom Kingdom’s cast for a cartoonish take on the sport across multiple featured gameplay modes. The game offers a multitude of unlockable characters and even a mini-golf mode, for added gameplay variety.

Mario Golf originally launched alongside a substantially different Game Boy Color edition, giving players the option of linking up both versions for bonus unlockables. To date, the Virtual Console versions of Mario Golf do not include support for these Transfer Pak-enabled features.

Also arriving on the Wii U eShop this week is Gunman Clive HD Collection, a bundle featuring a pair of visually updated run-and-gun shooters originally released for the Nintendo 3DS. Inspired by the Contra series, the Gunman Clive games boast a unique sketchbook artstyle and gameplay that grows in complexity and weirdness as players progress.

Though Gunman Clive begins in a fairly typical Wild West setting, later levels find the cowboy hero battling robots, dinosaurs, and other unlikely threats. The Gunman Clive HD Collection, priced at $4, updates the original games with HD-quality textures and adds support for Wii U GamePad off-TV play.

Vs. Excitebike rounds out this week’s Wii U eShop lineup. A sequel to the classic Nintendo Entertainment System motocross racer, Vs. Excitebike features a split-screen two-player mode in addition to a revised track creation toolkit.

Initially released exclusively in Japan for the Famicom Disk System add-on peripheral, Vs. Excitebike‘s Virtual Console debut this week marks the first time the game has ever been available in North America. Vs. Excitebike is up for grabs from the Wii U eShop for $5 this week.

Over on the 3DS, eShop customers can expect to see the quiz show adaptation Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? this week, along with a new demo version of Engine Software’s forward-scrolling racer Proun+.

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Nintendo’s eShop closures are a necessary, but messy move

A Nintendo Wii U gamepad flat on a table.

Nintendo last week announced its intentions to shut down the Wii U and 3DS eShops, the systems' digital storefronts, in March 2023. This decision was disappointing for hardcore fans who stuck with Nintendo during that rocky era and extremely worrying as many of the games available on the platforms won't be preserved.
More significant Wii U games and a handful of 3DS titles were ported to Switch, but many titles are still stuck on those systems and can’t be ported. Once the digital storefront shutdowns, digital-only titles will be gone forever, and physical copies of these titles will get more expensive and harder to experience. Fans and game preservationists have not been pleased by this decision, with the Video Game History Foundation giving the most candid response.
https://twitter.com/GameHistoryOrg/status/1494398068346654720
Following this announcement, Digital Trends spoke to an industry analyst and game preservationists to get a better idea of what exactly caused Nintendo to shut down these stores and to learn how it could do a better job at preserving its legacy.
Why is Nintendo shutting down the 3DS and Wii eShops?
Officially, Nintendo’s FAQ on the eShop closures says “this is part of the natural life cycle for any product line as it becomes less used by consumers over time." The answer doesn’t get into specifics and might confuse those still playing games on the system or fans of games only available on Wii U or 3DS. Omdia Principal Analyst Matthew Bailey explains Nintendo’s user base argument in more detail, highlighting the massive gap between the number of people playing the Switch as opposed to the Wii U.
“While Omdia expects the number of Switch consoles in active use to exceed 90 million on a global basis this year, the Wii U’s global active installed base will drop under one million in 2022,” he explains. “Even when you include the more enduring 3DS family of consoles into the equation, the Switch still comfortably accounts for over 90% of Nintendo’s total active console install base.”
If one is going off just the numbers, it’s sensible that Nintendo would want to focus on the majority of its players. Bailey admits that “Switch users are already reaping the benefits of Nintendo’s singular first-party development focus on one platform.” Still, one might argue that Nintendo should just let the eShops remain up even if it isn’t actively updating or maintaining them.

Unfortunately, Nintendo doesn’t see that as possible due to cost and security issues. Game Over Thrity, a Twitter user with over 20 years of experience working on IT projects and infrastructure, shed some light on what might have influenced Nintendo’s decision-making in a thread.
“As these systems age, they require patches, security, special contracts, updates, and personnel that know how they were built (and maintained),” his Twitter thread explains. “As time goes on, there are security holes, servers, code, infrastructure, etc., that can’t be brought up to modern standards. It becomes a constant struggle between maintaining legacy systems, paying people to do so, and trying to keep up with global regulations. It’s not cheap by any means. They can’t just ‘leave the lights on’ and stop supporting them. What if someone hacked the payment processor?”
With every passing year, the Wii U and 3DS eShops likely became more expensive to maintain and an increased security risk for the video game publisher. Instead of investing the time and resources into pleasing a smaller amount of players, the easier option is to turn everything off entirely. While he isn’t affiliated with Nintendo, Game Over Thirty’s assessment aligns with what we’ve heard from Nintendo and Omdia.
"The Wii U’s global active installed base will drop under one million in 2022."

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Nintendo is ending Wii U and 3DS eShop service

Photos of the 3DS eShops

Nintendo has announced the end of its eShop service for the Wii U console and 3DS handheld. The eShop will stay live on those devices until late March 2023, after which players will no longer be able to purchase games or download eShop apps and services for those devices.

After the closure, players will still be able to redownload games and DLC that they already own, use online play, and download software updates.

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Super Mario 3D World made it to Switch, but other Wii U games are still stranded

Wii U Composite

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury comes to Nintendo Switch this weekend giving the console another excellent first-party game. It’s the latest in a line of Wii U titles to receive a Switch port in the past few years, salvaging the best of the ill-fated two-screen system’s surprisingly strong library.

Even with games like Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker and Pikmin 3 making the jump to Switch, there’s a handful of strong Wii U games that haven’t -- and probably never will. That’s creating a generational dead zone that may leave games that dared to take advantage of the console’s bold concept forever trapped on the Wii U.