Notices by Pretendo Network :bw_fix: (pretendo@mastodon.pretendo.network)

Today we say goodbye to Nintendo Network. As of writing this message, Nintendo has shut down their online infrastructure for the Wii U and 3DS after 12 strong years. We know many of you here have fond memories from this generation, playing iconic titles such as Mario Kart 7, Splatoon, Super Mario Maker, and more. Today marks an end of a chapter in gamings history, and I'm sure many of you wondered why we have stayed so silent for most of the day.

Despite this chapter ending for Nintendo, it's just getting started for Pretendo! We won't be going anywhere, and we have many more plans for the future (such as expanding our infrastructure to allow for 3rd party servers, to allow games not under our scope of support to be brought back seamlessly through other teams). We will remain hard at work improving our servers, both in terms of over compatibility with more games and improving the performance of said games as well.

Before we get into the main part of the announcement, I would just like to extend one last, giant, thank you to everyone who helped support us recently! The amount of network dumps we obtained is outstanding, getting data for nearly all games! This will be such a valuable resource for us moving forward, as we no longer have a way to see these servers in action. These network dumps are invaluable to life of Pretendo, and we couldn't have done it without you all 💜.

With that, we have 2 big things to announce:

A new release of both Nimbus and Inkay has been released! You MUST install these new releases moving forward, as they contain critical updates required to keep multiplayer match making working! Download the latest versions here:

• https://github.com/PretendoNetwork/Inkay/releases/latest
• https://github.com/PretendoNetwork/Nimbus/releases/latest

Today we are finally announcing our private hackless Wii U connection method; SSSL! This new connection method exploits a bug in the Wii U SSL module introduced in firmware version 5.5.5 which allows us to support Wii U users WITHOUT HOMEBREW, using only a DNS change! For information on the setup and limitations of SSSL (as well as other updates regarding Pretendo moving forward), see our full blog post and updated Wii U guide:

• https://pretendo.network/blog/4-8-24
• https://pretendo.network/docs/install/wiiu

Shutdown reminder!

With just 2 weeks left until the Nintendo Network shutdown, we'd like to take this time to remind everyone that we are accepting network packet dumps for all games, for both the Wii U and 3DS! These packet dumps give us a glimpse into how the games operated when the official servers were still online. While technically possible to do without these dumps, having reference material like this will make the job of making replacement servers FAR easier once these servers go offline!

This is ESPECIALLY true for more obscure/less popular games, and games which have custom additions to them. Having network dumps for smaller games is just as, if not more, important than the bigger ones as we'd likely have much less reference material for them! We know everyone is excited to help get the big names going, but we can't forget the little guys either!

That being said, we appreciate ALL users who help us with this crowd sourcing! We have gotten a LOT of amazing data from everyone so far, all of which will definitely help us moving forward.

For those interested in contributing network packet dumps, see our guide on our website here https://pretendo.network/docs/network-dumps. This page also includes a section listing some games we consider "high priority", though these are NOT the only games we still need data for.

For those curious about our current network dump stats, so far we have:

• 99 HokakuCafe dumps (specifically Wii U)
• 528 HokakuCTR dumps (specifically 3DS)
• 15 general WireShark dumps (applies to both consoles)
• 65 general proxy dumps (applies to both consoles)

NOTE: These numbers come from the number of network packet dumps submitted through the Bandwidth upload command, and may not represent the real total number of dumps submitted.

SpotPass (BOSS) status update! We now have information for:

3DS - 315 of 429 titles

Wii U - 65 of 702 titles

If you’d like to help towards the cause, see our spreadsheet of titles and our guide for how to submit data!

https://pretendo.network/docs/network-dumps

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qU0o7zxILAZcI83nOidr1QSrM0maVp6OGdBqg0xwul0

Some of you may have noticed that Super Mario Maker on Nintendo Network has been throwing 106-0502 quite a lot lately. The earliest instances we have found are December 8th. The reason for this is seems to be a configuration issue on Nintendo's side.

A brief overview of how these servers work. Each game consists of 2 types of servers. A single authentication server, and many "secure" (game) servers. ALL games on Nintendo Network share 2 authentication servers, but there are MANY secure servers per game. Once the client passes the authentication server, it is given the address of the secure server. This seems to be selected from a pool of many IPs, but each game only seems to have 2 ports per secure server. This is likely some form of load balancing.

The error comes from the fact that many, if not MOST, of the servers that Super Mario Maker tries to use are seemingly no longer online. We believe this is due to Nintendo trying to scale things back for the shutdown and made an error in their presumed load balancer. So far we have only been able to identify a SINGLE working IP and port combination. All others fail to connect. We are unsure at this time if this affects other games.

The earliest occurrences of the error we can find are December 8th, and it still persists as of today December 17th. We find it unlikely that Nintendo will fix this issue before the shutdown, unfortunately.

As of today our winter beta is officially fully open! This includes Juxtaposition, our Miiverse replacement service!

Most games opened in November, with a select few waiting until December. Juxtaposition was delayed for technical reasons, but is now open!

Our yearly beta has begun an early release this year! As of today we have rolled out the following new servers for public beta testing!

• Super Mario Maker for both the WiiU and 3DS
• Splatoon
• The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes
• IronFall: Invasion
• Pokkén Tournament
• PIKMIN 3
• Steel Diver: Sub Wars

For more information regarding what has and has not changed, see our detailed announcement post on our Discord server! https://invite.gg/pretendo

As a preview for our yearly public beta coming up in December, we have decided to open up Wara Wara Plaza to the public!

Join our Discord server for the full details on what this means and how to connect! invite.gg/pretendo