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Comment by ticviking | Hacker News Reader

My question in the face of these kinds of actions is what can a non-technical person do in the face of having access to their “purchases” taken away?

My younger brother deals with autism and is worried that he won’t be able to play his games anymore if something happens. What’s the first place to go to to actually own what you bought on these platforms?

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Your purchases are not being taken away. This shutdown only affects future purchases.

https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/...

The ability to re-download purchases is being taken away and Nintendo doesn't provide a way to back them up.

Can you link to a statement from Nintendo saying that?

Ah, looks like I was mistaken about that. I had thought the eshop was being removed entirely, and it contained the interface for redownloading. Looking over the announcement it looks like they are keeping just that part alive for now.

Install CFW then dump your games

https://3ds.hacks.guide/

https://3ds.hacks.guide/dumping-titles-and-game-cartridges.h...

Both the 3DS and Wii U can be easily hacked to play pirated games without purchasing any additional hardware, there's numerous guides on how to do this that are a simple google search away, and the entire game catalogue has been dumped by game preservation groups like no-intro. As long as the consoles still work, all of their games can continue to be played even if Nintendo no longer sells them.

Get a flash cart. You can now play any game forever.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_cartridge

Good idea for older systems, but 3DS flashcarts are basically obsolete and pure software methods are better.

How is the ease of use Though?

If I can set up a flash cart and send it to him that’s much better than walking him through jailbreaks

I would rather spend money than time and the limited patience of a young man who is struggling :)

Flashcarts on the 3DS aren't the same as flashcarts on older systems, where you just put in the cart and it acts like a normal game. It requires special software on the console itself to accept the fake cart, and they fell out of use so many years ago that I don't think the software is even compatible with any recent 3DS firmware.

The pure software approach available nowadays is much easier and more convenient, as long as whoever uses it after it's hacked can follow some basic instructions (how to install games, how to not update the firmware if nintendo releases an update without first updating the hack, etc)

Checkpoint and Godmode9 are probably your best solutions

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