Nintendo is officially closing the chapter on the Wii U and 3DS. Today is the final day to play online on either console, and it’s kind of making me want to dust off the Wii U just to play the original Splatoon online one last time.
The Wii U was far from Nintendo’s most popular console, but I still have a lot of great memories with the machine. It was the first console I used to play competitively. As someone who never really liked the pressure of playing with complete strangers in games like Halo or Call of Duty, the Wii U allowed me to break through that.
It let me jump right into Mario Kart 8 with players from all over the world while raging behind my TV screen as the blue shell ruined my first-place finish. I didn’t have to worry about muting my mic as a slew of profanities left my lips. I also didn’t need to worry about trash talk coming from other players, either. Some may have viewed that radio silence as a downside of playing Nintendo games online, but I appreciated it at the time.
