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3DS owners losing access to previously bought DLC despite Nintendo promises-GameCentral-Entertainment – Metro
Fans have found that they’ve lost access to paid-for DLC on the 3DS, as Ubisoft tries to pretend The Crew never existed.
Super Smash Bros. For Nintendo 3DS – only partially preserved
Fans have found that they’ve lost access to paid-for DLC on the 3DS, as Ubisoft tries to pretend The Crew never existed.
Game preservation used to mean worrying about obscure NES games being lost to time but now the games most in danger of disappearing are not older titles but newer ones, especially anything that’s predominately online or features a lot of DLC.
Nintendo isn’t known for its online-only games, but it does have a lot of titles that are only available digitally, through its online store, and when that was recently shut down for the Wii U and 3DS many games become impossible to buy anymore – available to redownload only to those who already owned them.
The same problem affects DLC but while Nintendo previously assured fans that that could be redownloaded as well, that’s turned out not to be the case for Super Smash Bros.
So far there hasn’t been an issue with Wii U games, but it turns out that the 3DS handles DLC in a different way and that instead of going directly though the eShop it’s sometimes accessed via separate in-game stores.
That means for something like Super Smash Bros. For Nintendo 3DS you can’t redownload DLC you’ve paid for previously, as it’s not listed separately on the eShop.
Most other 3DS games seem to be unaffected but as Super Smash Bros. was one of the biggest games on the system, with a lot of DLC, its in-game store was a more complex affair.
A Reddit post has highlighted the issue and found that other games, including first party titles like New Super Mario Bros. 2, still allow you to redownload DLC, so it may be that the problem is limited to just Super Smash Bros.
Given how high profile that game was though, it seems incredible that Nintendo didn’t test how DLC would be affected by the shutdown, as they gave no warning that there would be a problem.
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Unfortunately, these sort of issues are becoming commonplace, for all formats and publishers, as little thought is given to game preservation or what will happen when servers are shut down.
Just this week it was reported, by preservation group Accursed Farms, that The Crew, which was released the same year as Super Smash Bros. For Nintendo 3DS, has been removed from players’ accounts on Ubisoft Connect.
Despite having paid for the game it’s now as if it never existed, although The Crew’s online features had already been switched off prior to that happening.
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