A YouTuber and live streamer, Jirard “The Completionist” Khalil, has forked out $22,791 (£18,715) to purchase the entire library of games on 3DS and Wii U sShops before the platforms shut down on March 27. Khalil succeeded in purchasing 1,547 3DS games (including DSiWare, Virtual Console, and DLC) and 866 Wii U games with 464 eShop cards.
The entire volume of game titles took up 1.2 TB on Wii U and 267 GB on 3DS.
The video game personality said the driving force behind the massive purchase is preservation. He said he wanted to preserve the entire trove of game titles and consoles available on both 3DS and Wii U platforms before they get lost forever. He made it clear that the entire purchase will ultimately be turned over to the Video Game History Foundation for digital preservation.
“Lost media is very real as far as video games preservation is concerned, since the industry started we run a daily risk of losing games forever; that’s why this matters,” Khalil said. “Every available game on the Nintendo Wii U and 3DS has been saved – it cost far too much time and way too much money, but it was absolutely worth it for the sake of game preservation.”
He revealed that to support Video Game History Foundation in their annual fundraising, he will be hosting a charity event dubbed Preserved Play and streamed on his Twitch channel on April 15-16 to raise money and donate purchased consoles to the foundation. He praised the foundation’s efforts at preserving video game codes, print media, and other game-related materials.
Khalil said purchasing the entire library of games on Wii U and 3DS was not as easy as anyone would expect. Some stores allowed very limited eShop card purchases, and some games could only be funded with little amounts in digital wallets. In some cases, some games must be played and completed before a purchase could be made – making the entire purchase and preservation mission something of a heck.