Hello everyone. For everyone who may own a 3DS or Wii U, I’m sharing this out to as many places I can think of, where the awareness can make an impact. Please read if you own a 3DS or Wii U at all, or know anybody who does:

The SpotPass servers by Nintendo will be shutting down on April 8th, 2024 at 4PM PDT. The SpotPass Archival Project has been created by the 3DS and Wii U Homebrew modding community, to make sure as much SpotPass data as humanly possible is preserved for the foreseeable future and not lost forever in the coming few days. This archival project can only be made possible by the donations of any individuals owning a 3DS and Wii U (not a donation of money, but rather a donation of SpotPass data stored on your system)

This data can only be collected before April 8th. Any and all dumps made or sent after the end-date will be useless due to the nature of how the archive process works. The dump does not require you to have a modded or Homebrewed console, and can be done completely unmodded. All you need extra as an unmodded user, is a PC or laptop.

Even if you make the dump before April 8, and send it to them afterwards, the dump will be useless regardless, this is why we are frantically trying to spread the word about the project as quickly as possible, as there is a lot of data that is still going to go away permanently regardless of the efforts of this project. The data is stored offline locally on your 3DS and Wii U, so you may be confused as to why you can’t just make the dump after the date. For a better explanation, here is a Discord message from the official Discord server which explains things. I am not a developer of the project, I’m just someone who is passionate about gaming and technology preservation, and wants to get this out there.

The data is going to be used by the developers to put towards developing a replacement for the SpotPass network, similar to what was done by the Homebrew community who created the Nintendo Network replacement, dubbed “Pretendo Network”.

Even if you don’t think you have much data on your system, please help dump it towards the archive as soon as possible (within the next couple of days), because you likely have some things you don’t know about. The process does not require a modded console at all, and the offical site here, has instructions for both users of modded consoles, and users of unmodded consoles. You can ask for help in the official Discord server of the project here and people will be very willing to help.

There are also many many niche, lesser known games, which have absolutely no data archived for them still to this day, so any help archiving them is vital. Thanks for reading, and I ask you to also share this out to as many people as you possibly can. Even if you do not own a 3DS or Wii U, please share this out to anyone you know who owns one, or even those whom you suspect might have one.

  • DreitonLullaby@lemm.eeOPEnglish
    0·
    6 months ago

    Thanks so much. Every bit helps. I noticed only 4 people dumped their 3DS data and 0 people dumped their Wii U data in the past couple of hours, so there’s going to be a very small amount of extra dumps by Apr 8th at this rate. I’m gonna continue sharing as much as I can. I was gonna go share on r/technology on Reddit, but saw that one of their rules explicitly forbids posts that are a “call to action”. What a stupid rule, why even stipulate that?

        • ManniSturgis@lemmy.zipEnglish
          0·
          6 months ago

          You can use it perfectly legally for installing your own physical games to your sd card for instance. Running CFW on the 3DS is objectively better as it has zero downsides once you have set it up. You can be a nintendo fanboy AND use CFW at the same time. I mean at least I think so. I hate nintendo, so I can’t say for certain.

      • DreitonLullaby@lemm.eeOPEnglish
        0·
        6 months ago

        It’s so strange. I’ve got 120 upvotes on just this one Lemmy post, yet the most likes I have on any of my Reddit reposts is 14 on r/technology, followed by 9 on r/nintendo, and the other 3 subreddits I’ve shared on have no upvotes at all. I would have thought Reddit, being so much more popular than Lemmy, would get way more upvotes. I’ve certainly gotten a fair few thousand views already on Reddit, yet so little upvotes. I just find this strange.

    • Exec@pawb.socialEnglish
      0·
      6 months ago

      I noticed only 4 people dumped their 3DS data and 0 people dumped their Wii U data in the past couple of hours, so there’s going to be a very small amount of extra dumps by Apr 8th at this rate.

      This post and the cross-posted ones along with new people waking up in other time zones sure helped to boost those numbers a bit.

          • DreitonLullaby@lemm.eeOPEnglish
            0·
            6 months ago

            Thanks for the suggestion. My post over there currently has 48 upvotes and had at least one person comment they’ve uploaded their data; a few others said they will do it “soon” or “tomorrow”

    • SailorMoss@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      6 months ago

      I’ve done it on my WiiU/3DSes as well. I’ll message my friend with a 3DS to do it later tonight as well.

      Is there anything else I/others can do to help with preservation on my/their systems before the Nintendo network goes down?

      • DreitonLullaby@lemm.eeOPEnglish
        0·
        6 months ago

        Thanks for asking. I asked on the Discord server, and I was told that the Pretendo Network devs are also asking for network dumps for games that have online multiplayer support, and that you can find out about it on their website. I haven’t found where on the site he was talking about yet, but I’m going to look further into it tomorrow to see if I can get any of mine dumped.