4th April 2016, 5:53 PM
The DSi store is still up, but it will be closed in 2017. I just checked it and confirmed both of those things.
The 3DS is fully capable of playing all DSi games (they aren't emulated, the hardware is basically the same, just more powerful), but the real question is just what will and won't end up on the store. Frankly, a little pruning would be a good thing. Nintendo was FAR too lax in their standards when it came to DSi and Wiiware. There's a lot of garbage on both of those stores, and not just any garbage, like "Action 52" levels of garbage. Historically, yes, it would be good to have an archive, but some of this never should have been approved to begin with. The worst of it actually came after the 3DS and Wii U hit shelves, the very definition of shovelware poured out onto the system to give it a sense of continued life. Check out the store for yourself. It's pretty embarrassing.
The good news is, every game that's actually worth playing is available on the 3DS store, except for Four Swords Anniversary, a game Nintendo foolishly is keeping in the "artificial scarcity" pile. The bad news is, the 3DS transfer tool has to be downloaded first before it can be used, and for obvious reasons it wasn't exactly preloaded on DSi systems. If you've any intention of moving DSi games to the new system, best get that tool now. DS games run just fine on the 3DS, except for the blurred scaling. That can be disabled so it keeps the intended resolution, but that shrinks the image by a good amount. The 3DS XL (new or otherwise) counters this a bit, but it still ends up looking at it's biggest on a DSi XL. Further, the d-pad is just easier to use on the original DS.
For my part, I have yet to transfer over my DSi purchases to my 3DS, for the reasons I stated above. Frankly, I still won't have need of such after the store is disabled, so long as I am careful not to delete anything. I can "back up" my DSi games to an SD card, in case I run out of room, so that'll serve for now. Ultimately though, I'll need to make the move. The flash memory on the DSi won't hold out forever. I'm actually worried about that, as I wonder if the system will even be bootable when that fails, but frankly it'll probably be a good long while before that's an issue. I don't use my DSi's flash nearly as often as I do an SD card, and my oldest SD card is still going strong. Flash drives in PCs get a lot more use, so they might actually fail in their use lifespan, but I expect this'll last at least as long as the battery backup in my Zelda cart (still works as of today).
Ultimately, hackers will need to find a way to run decrypted DSi games on DSi systems.
The 3DS is fully capable of playing all DSi games (they aren't emulated, the hardware is basically the same, just more powerful), but the real question is just what will and won't end up on the store. Frankly, a little pruning would be a good thing. Nintendo was FAR too lax in their standards when it came to DSi and Wiiware. There's a lot of garbage on both of those stores, and not just any garbage, like "Action 52" levels of garbage. Historically, yes, it would be good to have an archive, but some of this never should have been approved to begin with. The worst of it actually came after the 3DS and Wii U hit shelves, the very definition of shovelware poured out onto the system to give it a sense of continued life. Check out the store for yourself. It's pretty embarrassing.
The good news is, every game that's actually worth playing is available on the 3DS store, except for Four Swords Anniversary, a game Nintendo foolishly is keeping in the "artificial scarcity" pile. The bad news is, the 3DS transfer tool has to be downloaded first before it can be used, and for obvious reasons it wasn't exactly preloaded on DSi systems. If you've any intention of moving DSi games to the new system, best get that tool now. DS games run just fine on the 3DS, except for the blurred scaling. That can be disabled so it keeps the intended resolution, but that shrinks the image by a good amount. The 3DS XL (new or otherwise) counters this a bit, but it still ends up looking at it's biggest on a DSi XL. Further, the d-pad is just easier to use on the original DS.
For my part, I have yet to transfer over my DSi purchases to my 3DS, for the reasons I stated above. Frankly, I still won't have need of such after the store is disabled, so long as I am careful not to delete anything. I can "back up" my DSi games to an SD card, in case I run out of room, so that'll serve for now. Ultimately though, I'll need to make the move. The flash memory on the DSi won't hold out forever. I'm actually worried about that, as I wonder if the system will even be bootable when that fails, but frankly it'll probably be a good long while before that's an issue. I don't use my DSi's flash nearly as often as I do an SD card, and my oldest SD card is still going strong. Flash drives in PCs get a lot more use, so they might actually fail in their use lifespan, but I expect this'll last at least as long as the battery backup in my Zelda cart (still works as of today).
Ultimately, hackers will need to find a way to run decrypted DSi games on DSi systems.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)