Pretendo, an open-source Nintendo Network replacement service, has granted online access to Wii U owners following this week’s closure of the official services by Nintendo.
As spotted by Nintendo Life, Pretendo released a blog post detailing the launch of their new “Wii U: SSSL”.
Prior to Nintendo shutting down the official Wii U online services on the 8th of April, Pretendo offered an alternative online service for users running homebrew firmware on modified consoles.
Pretendo’s blog post from yesterday reveals that an exploit found by Pretendo developer Shutterbug, “allows users to connect to Pretendo Network from a stock Wii U, with no homebrew or custom firmware at all”.
All that’s required for players looking to jump into some online Wii U action is a simple DNS change within the console’s user settings.
Not every online Wii U game will experience a resurrection thanks to Pretendo,however, with the custom server providers noting that games with their own SSL libraries such as Ubisoft’s 2014 hit Watch Dogs are unable to take advantage of Wii U: SSSL.
While the new SSSL solution will undoubtedly please Wii U players, Pretendo have confirmed that a similar approach is not available for users wishing to play Nintendo 3DS titles. Nintendo discontinued support for 3DS online services on the 8th of April alongside the Nintendo Wii U.
Pretendo Preservation
Pretendo’s open-source project is one of several attempts to preserve online functionality following the official discontinuation of the network services by Nintendo.
The launch of the Wii U: SSSL isn’t the only good news for games preservation on the Nintendo Wii U and 3DS this week though.
The SpotPass Archival Project, a fan-run initiative to preserve as much DLC for the Nintendo Wii U and 3DS as possible, garnered the support of the homebrew modding community to successfully dump heaps of data from the now-defunct services.
In total, game preservationists secured 7,553 Wii U dumps and a whopping 15,579 3DS dumps, ensuring their existence and preventing them from becoming lost forever.
As reported by Jordan Gerblink for GamesRadar, The SpotPass Archival Project posted an update on their website, detailing their plans to publish an archive of all the received data.
In other preservation news, Microsoft’s Sarah Bond announced the formation of a new team committed to game preservation and forward compatibility with future Xbox hardware.
