As we know, the Wii U and 3DS eShops will no longer allow purchases from March 27th. This is horrible news for video game preservation, but Jirard ‘The Completionist’ Khalil has gone above and beyond with his team of merry men to buy every single Wii U and 3DS game available on the respective eShops for the purpose of preservation.
Jirard Khalil, known as The Completionist, is a content creator from the NormalBoots era of YouTube, in the same ilk as creators like PeanutButterGamer, Chadtronic, and Caddicarus. Known for his compulsion to 100% games, hence the name of The Completionist (although he was first called ThatOneVideoGamer), it seems like Khalil has also gone ahead in his most noble 100% completion of all – the 3DS and Wii U eShops.
Khalil says in the video that this task consisted of buying 866 Wii U Games and 1,547 3DS games, noting that some games the team planned to buy had been delisted from the eShop at some point in time. The total storage taken up by these games on the respective consoles was 1.2 TB on the Wii, and 267 GB (2,136,689 blocks) on the 3DS, which meant a LOT of external storage was used for this endeavour.
The task took Khalil and friends a little under a year to complete, with them breaking off into three separate groups (one of which was just one guy on his own) to purchase 464 Nintendo eShop cards. All the boys involved in buying the eShop cards had their cards blocked in the process. In total, the cost of this endeavour was $22,791 USD ($33,958.13 AUD) and was funded almost entirely by Khalil doing YouTube sponsorships.
The almost 20-minute video following Khalil’s journey to buy every single 3DS and Wii U game he could is an absolutely wild ride to get on. As the video goes on, Khalil makes it jarringly clear just how difficult the task is, not just in terms of time consumed, but that it almost seems like Nintendo doesn’t even want them to buy every single game on the dying eShops. eShop card buying issues, eShop card redemption issues, storage issues, download issues, and more. Honestly, it seemed like a harrowing experience.
But alas, it was for a good cause. Khalil mentions in the video that he is incredibly passionate about video game preservation. He has long been a supporter of various non-profits that put time towards video game preservation, including the Video Game History Foundation. The video concludes with Khalil stating that he will be donating both consoles and external storage drives to the Video Game History Foundation for preservation purposes.
Of course, not every regular person in the world can do something like this, y’know? It rocks hard and it goes a long way in terms of keeping digital-only games preserved for future generations, but it’s a big ol’ thing to do! And hey, it may not be the end for a lot of these games. Despite them no longer being available on these digital storefronts, there are definitely other ways to get your hands on them if you know where to look. That’s all!
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