Jirard Khalil purchases every video game on Wii U, 3DS eShops

Youtube and Twitch star Jirard “The Completionist” Khalil has decided to take on the challenging and costly task of buying every game available on the Nintendo eShop for the 3DS and Wii U before the end of the month.

The gamer wasn’t working alone. Khalil teamed up with others to gather as many resources as possible to complete their mission before the March 27 deadline — when the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U eShop are set to close.

Last summer, Nintendo announced the closure of its Nintendo 3DS and Wii U eShops. Despite requests from gamers and fans to reconsider the move, Nintendo stands firm in its decision to shut down the eShops.

The company has begun maintenance periods to gradually phase them out. As a result, clearance sales were made available on the eShops for gamers who wished to purchase digital games for the last time.

Preserving games

Khalil recently released a 20-minute video where he and his team explained their months-long attempt to obtain all the games available on the eShops. After facing delays from their banks, they planned to collect 464 Nintendo eShop gift cards.

The total cost of the gift cards was $22,791. Khalil said they were funded by sponsorships in his videos and streams and revenue generated from ads and Twitch subscriptions.

In the video, Khalil explained that the team had to purchase many Wii U and 3DS games, including some no longer available on the eShop. They bought 866 Wii U games and 1,547 3DS games, which required significant external storage.

The total storage used by the games on the consoles was 1.2 TB on the Wii U and 267 GB on the 3DS.

Khalil also said the mission encountered several obstacles due to Nintendo’s regulations, such as discontinuing traditional payment methods for the 3DS and Wii U eShops and limiting the amount that an eShop wallet can hold at a given time.

Khalil explained that downloading every eShop game on both platforms was also difficult due to the slow performance of the eShop clients on these consoles compared to the Nintendo Switch eShop. He had to purchase multiple microSD cards to store the 3DS games and a 2 TB external hard drive to store the Wii U games.

Khalil explained that the primary motive behind this enormous project was to guarantee the preservation of every single game.

“Lost media is very real as far as video games preservation is concerned, since the industry started we run a daily risk of losing games forever, that’s why this matters,” he said.

Khalil also mentioned that he and the team had initiated an annual charity event called “Preserved Play” to raise funds for preserving video games, which will be held on April 15 and 16 on his Twitch channel.

They will donate consoles and storage devices to the Video Game History Foundation to help preserve “video games code, print media and more.”

Closure of Nintendo Wii U, 3DS eShops

The Nintendo eShop was introduced in June 2011 on the Nintendo 3DS and later in November 2012.

Prior to that, Nintendo had other online stores, such as the Wii Shop Channel and the DSi Shop, which provided limited content, such as exclusive WiiWare titles and classic Nintendo games through the Virtual Console.

In contrast to other online stores, the eShop offered the convenience of purchasing and downloading most major titles digitally at launch for Wii U and 3DS/2DS owners.

Even though new purchases won’t be possible for the Nintendo eShop on Wii U and Nintendo 3DS systems after March 27, Nintendo has confirmed that users can re-download games they’ve already purchased, as well as access software updates and DLC.