(MAJOR UPDATE: ONLY 10 HRS REMAIN BEFORE SHUT DOWN AT TIME OF WRITING THIS UPDATE)
Hello everyone. For everyone who owns a 3DS, 2DS, or even a Wii U, I’m sharing this out to as many places I can think of, where the awareness can make an impact. Please read if you own a 3DS or Wii U at all, or know anybody who does:
The SpotPass servers by Nintendo will be shutting down on April 8th, 2024 (4PM PDT). The SpotPass Archival Project has been created by the 3DS and Wii U Homebrew modding community, to make sure as much SpotPass data as humanly possible is preserved for the foreseeable future and not lost forever in the coming few days. A huge amount of SpotPass content is essentially free DLC for various games and apps, and they could have been installed without your knowledge. They are not required for most games to play, but without their archival, many games will lose DLC content permanently and some features may no longer work. This archival project can only be made possible by the donations of any individuals owning a 3DS or Wii U (not a donation of money, but rather a donation of SpotPass data stored on your system)
This data can only be collected before April 8th. Any and all dumps made or sent after the end-date will be useless due to the nature of how the archive process works. The dump does not require you to have a modded or Homebrewed console, and can be done completely unmodded. All you need extra as an unmodded user, is a PC or laptop. There is also zero risk of having your console banned; so rest assured. The guides can be found here: https://spotpassarchive.github.io/#guides.
Update: For those who can’t recall the difference, what we’re archiving here is SpotPass, not StreetPass. The difference between the two are: StreetPass: Is a 3DS exclusive offline wireless tech which connects your 3DS to other systems and shares various bits of data with random people you pass on the street (in the real world). For example, in the game StreetPass Mii Plaza, the data sent to random passers are your Mii, along with your most recently played game, and your Mii can be played with in the various minigames that StreetPass Mii Plaza offers, and vice versa. SpotPass: Is an online wireless tech available on both the 3DS and Wii U. Unlike StreetPass, it does not connect to other 3DS systems directly, but rather connects to Nintendo’s SpotPass servers online. The data sent could be anything from notifications, to in-game content. This is what we’re archiving; not StreetPass data. Streetpass is not an online service, and thus does not lose content after April 8th; but SpotPass data will be lost after the 8th if it’s not archived. Wikipedia article.
Even if you make the dump before April 8, and send it to them afterwards, the dump will be useless regardless, this is why we are frantically trying to spread the word about the project as quickly as possible, as there is a lot of data that is still going to go away permanently regardless of the efforts of this project. The data is stored offline locally on your 3DS and Wii U, so you may be confused as to why you can’t just make the dump after the date. For a better explanation, here is a Discord message from the official Discord server which explains things. I am not a developer of the project, I’m just someone who is passionate about gaming and technology preservation, and wants to get this out there, and the 3DS was a wonderful part of my late childhood.
The data is going to be used by the developers to put towards developing a replacement for the SpotPass network, similar to what was done by the Homebrew community who created the Nintendo Network replacement, dubbed “Pretendo Network”.
Even if you don’t think you have much data on your system, please help dump it towards the archive as soon as possible (within the next couple of days), because you likely have some things you don’t know about. The process does not require a modded console at all, and the official site here, has instructions for both users of modded consoles, and users of unmodded consoles. You can ask for help in the official Discord server of the project here and people will be very willing to help.
There are also many many niche, lesser known games, which have absolutely no data archived for them still to this day, so any help archiving them is vital. Thanks for reading, and I ask you to also share this out to as many people as you possibly can. Even if you don’t own a 3DS or Wii U, please share this out to anyone you know who owns one, or even those whom you suspect might have one.
Edit: added some extra information, removed some no longer relevant information, fixed some typos, improved some wording slightly.
🤔 Might be stupid question but what is spotPass why do we need to preserve the data?
My version of a TLDR:
Spotpass is a wireless tech that would auto connect with other 3ds or Wii U systems that were in the immediate area albeit with a limited range. It was their way of having a social community. Sort of like how you might meet other people while walking around outside.
In the case of Spotpass, when you connected, it would show you the user’s profile, their favorite games, etc. And in some cases for specific games it would provide special DLCs or content that cannot be found elsewhere.
Hence why we’d want to preserve that data since some DLC and other features are exclusive to Spotpass.
This isn’t correct, you’re getting confused between StreetPass and SpotPass. Yes, SpotPass is a wireless tech, but it has nothing to do with connecting to other 3DS’s or Wii U’s (and the Wii U did not have StreetPass; only SpotPass). A StreetPass-like feature would be pointless on a Wii U because you couldn’t take it out of the house without it losing range from the console. The 3DS on the other hand, had both features. So yes, the SpotPass did provide you with “DLC’s”, but it did not have the same features as StreetPass.
Also, the users’ profile and their favourite game was shown in the friends list, which was not a part of SpotPass. I can’t remember for sure if you needed a Nintendo Network account for adding friends, but I do know that you can add friends offline through the local network, but this does not use the SpotPass network, as the SpotPass network requires internet (and most games which had SpotPass warned you of this prior to activation).
The local wireless connection used in the friends list is the same connection used in local multiplayer games, the same as how it works on the Nintendo Switch.
Thanks you. I will try to extract the data from my 3ds later but I never used to that feature. So I am not sure if it will much help.
Note that if you got the console second hand (even if it was factory reset), apparently, the SpotPass data stays on the console in the background, so it may be of more help than you think.
Edit on May 13, 2024 (Originally commented April 5): Sorry, but this information was incorrect and no data remains after a factory reset. Mainly making this edit for future readers.
based on memory, so a little vague, but examples - access to various merchants in Bravely Default required you to have passed others. i remember this because i was sick with flu and spent a couple days with my 3ds and my daughter’s running/“passing” each other repeatedly so i could unlock everything.
to the best of my memory, some turn-based rpg’s (Persona? SMT? Etrian Odyssey?) would allow you to access customized personas/demons/teams? others had made available. like maybe someone had a really great high level persona (basically a pokemon) with a really great selection of skills on it and you could use it instead of trying to build the same thing yourself, before you might have normally had access to it.
so the latter type thing was cool and fun, but i didn’t get many of those. the first example is a situation where the game doesn’t really fully work without spotpass.
edit - you could visit houses of people you had passed in animal crossing and buy their stuff, too. so you could see how other people decorated and access furniture you might not have access to yet (seasonal, Gracie).
Certain WiiU and 3DS games have a link with Miiverse, Nintendo’s Twitter before it closed 2017, you could post… posts from the game your playing when you beat a specific level or complete an achivement. You could also see and interact with other peoples posts ingame, in Super Mario 3D World for example you would see other players avatars on the world map, see their Miiverse posts and interact with them. It merged ingame worlds with Miiverse extremely well, making it feel like you were part of a tight not community Good Vibes Gaming did a very good video about Pretendo as a whole good watch if your interested
ok never used that feature in anything on my 3ds
I think you’re getting confused between the Nintendo Network and SpotPass. Miiverse didn’t use SpotPass at all (except for notifications; which were also a function of SpotPass). Miiverse used the Nintendo Network, which as you know, the Nintendo Network was recreated into the Pretendo Network; but this has nothing to do with SpotPass, which is a separate service altogether.
SpotPass was/is a free service provided by Nintendo that was only on the 3DS and Wii U consoles; Nintendo Switch doesn’t provide this. Essentially what it’s purpose was, was for Nintendo to send various pieces of content to players for their games and apps. For example, Tomodatchi Life had various time-limited costumes distributed to players on a half-monthly bases. This was some of the data I had on my console. Other examples include special distributions of special Pokemon in pokemon games. So, in a sense, you could call the SpotPass data “DLC’s”. That’s why they are important to preserve, as they are DLC content that was distributed for free. They also include notifications, since all the notifications sent to you were through SpotPass. There’s also some DLC’s for New Super Mario Bros. 2 that require you to receive a SpotPass notification in order to install.