This includes emulation - which imitates the technology a given game operates under. Video games can't be archived the same way film and television are, as older titles require a number of tools to keep them playable over time. Classic Nintendo, PlayStation, and even Xbox games are harder to obtain because of the outmoded technology used to play them. 'I really wish as an industry we'd come together to help preserve the history of what gaming is about so we don't lose the ability to go back,' he said. Last year, Kinda Funny Gamecast spoke with Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer about the importance of preserving video game history. Meanwhile, hard copies for titles on the even-older Game Boy, Super Nintendo, and the Nintendo DS have soared in price since before the pandemic, with some reaching well beyond the cost of a modern AAA game. The situation is even more dire for smaller indie games or add-ons, which were never released physically, and only existed as purchasable downloads. Soon, they won't be able to buy digital versions altogether. The Wii U's storefront, which will soon go offline.īut plenty of collectors, content creators, and fans of the DS and 3DS in particular still play its older games. In a public statement, Nintendo said the closure comes at the end of their product's 'natural life cycle,' as the 3DS and Wii U have long been eclipsed by their fast-selling Switch console. Archiving the intangibleįans have been airing their grievances over the closure when it was first announced back in February 2022. Because unlike movies or books, games require special hardware to play, and - increasingly - don't even exist in the physical world at all.

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