Nintendo gamers on Wii U and 3DS have beaten a 14-year-old Halo 2 record by playing online after the scheduled shutdown date for the system’s servers. These Nintendo fans surpassed the previous record set by Halo 2 fans, who continued playing for 25 days after the servers were scheduled to be shut down. Like the Nintendo fans today, the Halo fans found that they were able to play well beyond the shut-down date, as long as they kept playing.

On April 8th, 2024, almost exactly 14 years after the original Xbox servers went down, Nintendo discontinued Wii U and 3DS servers for players worldwide. This came just over a year after Nintendo closed the eShops for both systems. However, it is still possible for players who still have the Poke Transporter and Pokemon Bank to use their services to transfer Pokemon between games to the Switch via Pokemon Home.

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In May of 2010, Halo 2 players set a record after playing on the servers three and a half weeks past their shutdown date. 14 years later, Nintendo fans decided to do something similar by playing past the scheduled Wii U and 3DS server shutdowns. On May 3rd, Gaffs, one of the leaders pushing the charge for the online streak, posted a tweet announcing that they beat the record. In the tweet, Gaffs mentions eight Nintendo players still online at the time. Dubbed “The Crazy 8 of Nintendo Network," Amanda, Fishguy6564, Gearworks, SlitherySheep, Lcd101, Omoroid, Gorrah!!, and Eveh-roo-deh have been playing on for almost a month after the scheduled shutdown date. The majority of players have been on Xenoblade Chronicles X, which is a game currently trapped on the Wii U system.

Seven Players Remain Online To Keep The Record Going

However, though they played valiantly, Gorrah!! disconnected from Xenoblade Chronicles X on May 5th, making the Crazy 8 seven players strong. The streak is still going as of the time of this writing. It’s been 28 days since the servers were scheduled to be shut down, but these fans are still playing. SlitherySheep has been playing Mario Maker alone for some time now, after the community celebrated beating every level in existence before its shutdown.

The dedication a community of gamers can have to celebrate some of their favorite games and characters is a noble one, giving them support long after the official developers abandoned their projects. Some fans even take it among themselves to preserve content, like the SpotPass survival project, which preserves Wii U and 3DS content after Nintendo ended support. Meanwhile, the Nintendo community continues to watch these seven remaining players game on after the Wii U and 3DS’s shutdown date.

Nintendo

Date Founded

September 23, 1889

Headquarters

Kyoto, Kyoto, Japan

Consoles

Nintendo 64 , Nintendo DS , Nintendo 3DS , Nintendo 2DS , Nintendo Wii , Nintendo Switch , Nintendo GameCube