A YouTuber purchased Nintendo games for €21,000 and encountered numerous problems – some caused by Nintendo.
Who is it about? Jirad “The Completionist” Khalil is a U.S. content creator. On YouTube, he has 1.59 million subscribers and is best known for completing games 100%. In this special challenge, he not only finishes the story but also collects every item, completes every side quest, no matter how trivial, and speaks to every NPC.
He generally publishes videos about “gaming” on his channel. In addition to completion videos, the YouTuber also creates lists of the “best” or “worst” games of a year.
YouTuber invests $22,000 and over 300 days
Which games did the YouTuber buy? The Completionist purchased all games from the Nintendo eShop on the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS.
The shop will close on both consoles on March 27, 2023, making many games no longer digitally available. Some Pokémon titles such as X, Y, Sun, and Moon, which were released on the 3DS, will also not be available for digital purchase anymore.
In addition, the YouTuber purchased all DLCs of the listed games alongside all 3DS and Wii U games. The entire project cost him $22,791 (€21,248) and took 328 days.
If you want to see the YouTuber’s video before we discuss the problems that arose, we embed it here:
The bank freezes the YouTuber’s credit card
What problems did he encounter? The YouTuber faced many different problems in his endeavor.
- No company wanted to sponsor his video. He had to find a way to finance over $20,000 in Nintendo games. Eventually, he accepted several sponsorships in a series of other videos to indirectly finance the games.
- The bank froze the credit card:
- The Completionist decided to purchase the eShop credit required for the project in physical gift cards because he assumed that if he topped up his eShop balance online using a registered credit card, the bank would cause issues.
Among the games that will no longer be available with the eShop’s closure are also Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire:
“Nintendo has tried to stop us several times.”
What problems did they have with Nintendo? Once the YouTuber managed to physically buy all the necessary gift cards with the help of his team, problems from Nintendo’s side began.
The Completionist referred to this chapter of the video with the words: “Nintendo has tried to stop us several times.”
- They could top up a maximum of €250 to the account, so they had to buy some games first with every €250.
- They could only download 10 games at a time.
- After purchasing a certain number of games, they were kicked out of the system and could only buy games again the next day.
- Some publishers did not renew their licenses because the shop was going to close anyway. Consequently, some games disappeared from the shop prematurely.
- They could only download via Wi-Fi – the 3DS does not provide a LAN connection directly from the eShop and for the Wii U, a separate USB-LAN adapter is required.
- The Wii U and 3DS can only store 300 icons, which means 300 games on the device, even if an external storage device with significantly more storage space is connected.
- The YouTuber and his team had to buy additional SD cards and external hard drives to store 300 games per storage unit.
- They couldn’t purchase DLCs directly in the eShop on the 3DS but had to start the games and buy the DLCs there.
- Some games required a certain gameplay progress before they could purchase a DLC.
- Super Mario Brothers 2 required finishing the first world
- Fire Emblem: Fates required playing 6 chapters
- Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney requires completing the game before being able to purchase a DLC. According to The Completionist, this typically takes about 25 hours of gameplay.
Why did he buy the games? At the beginning of the video, The Completionist explains that he loves playing and collecting video games. Accordingly, he found the announcement that the eShop would be closing on the 3DS and Wii U quite “creepy”.
Afterward, the YouTuber came up with the idea to save these games from being permanently lost and to buy every game in the store. At the end of the video, he elaborates on his underlying motivation and says:
“Why should I go to so much trouble and spend money that I don’t have? Well, because developers all over the world have done just that. They have invested a lot of effort and money to bring their games to the various eShops.”
Not only old Nintendo consoles and their associated games can be captivating. This was also noted by MeinMMO editor Benedikt Schlotman last year:
I laughed at them – Now the Nintendo Switch is my purchase of the year 2022
