On January 30st, 2019, Nintendo permanently closed the doors to the Wii Shop Channel. On March 27th, 2023, Nintendo locked up the 3DS / Wii U eShop and threw away the key. In 2021 Sony announced that they were closing the PSN store for the PSP, PS3, and PS Vita, only to backtrack on the announcement later for the PS3 and PS Vita. For now, PSN has only been vaporized on the PSP. This year (2024), Microsoft will join Sony and Nintendo by shutting down the Xbox 360 Digital Marketplace on July 29th. By the end of 2024, after a span of only 5 years, we’ll have seen hundreds of digital games lose official support.
The most common response I see is gamers touting how superior physical media is for preserving video games. In all fairness, physical games will last longer than digital stores. But as a collector, I think it’s disingenuous to claim that physical video games are the ultimate solution to preservation. Physical video games have an expiration date, too. Cartridges can lose their battery save or get their pin contacts broken. Discs can rot or get scratched. And that’s not all — a pet might eat them, a fire might burn them, or a flood might ruin them. If I want to truly preserve my game collection in the long term, then I need to make backups. I need to be able to copy them, reproduce them, store them, and easily retrieve them. Ironically, digital is the better long-term solution — it’s just of a different type. Since game companies won’t back up my games for me, I took matters into my own hands.
I modded my 3DS, Wii, and PlayStation Vita.
The 3DS was first. I’d never done anything like this before; I could feel my heart beating during the entire process. But thanks to the several guides available online, I got the Homebrew Launcher up and running within a couple of hours. I made backups of my entire 3DS library and got them running on my PC thanks to the Citra emulator. The emulator has some performance problems, but it’s nothing too egregious. Citra is especially useful as a reviewer, because I can easily take screenshots and record video on it. Not only that, but Citra can also connect with other users online without needing to go through Nintendo’s servers. Online play is completely preserved. And for my long-term storage, I’ve copied the games to my external hard drive. Should anything happen to my cartridges, I have a Plan B ready.
The PS Vita was next, though it was more of a hassle. I had to downgrade my PS Vita’s software to an older version for the hacks to finally work, which took about a week to figure out. Once I got it working, though, I was able to use an adapter to play my PS Vita games on a normal SD card and create backups of my library. The PS Vita’s proprietary cards have a bad habit of failing, so it gave me peace of mind to know that I won’t suddenly lose my games. The PC’s Vita emulator, Vita3K, still has room for improvement with its spotty performance, but thankfully it’s much easier to create screenshots and capture video directly from the Vita anyway. My Vita collection isn’t that big, but I still feel better seeing those games safely stored on my external hard drive.
Last but not least, I modded my Wii. The Wii was even easier to hack than the 3DS. Thanks to the dozens of online resources, I got the Homebrew Channel set up within a matter of minutes. I plugged in a USB thumb drive to act as its digital storage, and within an hour I was backing up my GameCube and Wii discs to use on both my console and my PC. The Dolphin emulator (which supports both GameCube and Wii) is one of the most robust emulators ever made. You can use either the original console controllers, or your PC game pad, or a mouse and keyboard. You can even remap the Wiimote’s “swing” to a standard button. It’s a gamechanger for people who don’t like motion controls. Dolphin can also upscale games to look better, and it can connect to other players online. Most importantly, the performance is nearly flawless across the entire library.
One of my favorite things to do with my modded systems is break the region lock and import Japanese games that we never got in the West, such as the 3DS remake of Dragon Quest Monsters or the quirky Wii game Captain Rainbow. Fans have created translation patches that allow me to play many of these games in English. I can’t imagine how much work and generosity it must have taken to create these patches and then offer them for free.
In a way, this blog post is one extended “thank you” to the fans who worked so hard to help me and hundreds of other people preserve our video games in the long term. We can’t count on companies to do it for us. Nintendo Switch Online and Xbox Series X’s backwards compatibility can only preserve so much. If anyone who worked on these projects is reading this, thank you. You are the unsung heroes of the gaming industry, and the reason we have a comprehensive history to look back on at all. If you’re on the fence still about modding your systems, I highly recommend it. As long as you follow the directions closely, you have nothing to worry about — it’s much easier than you think.
Hookshot, Charge Beam, Revive 