Summary
After five months offline, the multiplayer servers forMario Kart 8andSplatoonwill be going back online for the Wii U. In December 2022, a severe security vulnerability was found in some first-party Nintendo games on the 3DS, Wii U, and Switch. This caused the company to begin updating a number of titles, including older ones, which resulted inMario Kart 7being updated for the first time in 10 years.
The vulnerability, called “ENLBufferPwn,” allowed attackers to use a game’s online status to remotely take control of the target console. This could lead to stolen payment information and even unwanted access to a device’s microphone and camera. Though several games were patched fairly quickly, in March 2023, Nintendo opted to take theWii U multiplayer servers forMario Kart 8andSplatoonofflinewhile it worked to resolve the vulnerability.
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Five months later, Nintendo has announced that the emergency server maintenance forMario Kart 8andSplatoonhas finally been completed, and network services for the two games onWii Uwill resume on August 3. Nintendo warns that online play may be suspended again with little notice if further issues are discovered, however.
Other titles found to be vulnerable to an ENLBufferPwn attack wereMario Kart 7, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, ARMS, Splatoon 2, Splatoon 3, Super Mario Maker 2,andNintendo Switch Sports.All of those games have beenupdated byNintendo and their security vulnerabilities fixed. However, it’s understood that there may be other games that are also open to the ENLBufferPwn exploit that haven’t yet been discovered.
Hopefully, no additional issues will be found inMario Kart 8andSplatoonon the Wii U. The platform is part of the previous console generation and its eShop has been shut down. So, if there are more security vulnerabilities discovered, it’s possible that Nintendo will choose to remove online functionality for the two affected games and leave it at that.
Despite theunderwhelming sales performance of the Wii U, which led to its faster-than-usual sunsetting, many gamers still appreciate the console for its innovative and unique features. It was, in many ways, the prototype for what would become the Switch, one of the bestselling consoles of all time. The Wii U is also backward compatible with the full Wii library of games, hundreds of which were only released for that platform. For that reason alone, the portable Wii U still holds an important place in many people’s gaming setups.
