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Nintendo discontinues Letter Box/Swapnotes service on the 3DS

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Nintendo discontinues Letter Box/Swapnotes service on the 3DS
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3DS

Say goodbye to Letter Box (or Swapnote in the US) on the 3DS. As of yesterday, Nintendo has decided to discontinue the service.

With Letter Box, you could send messages and pictures to your 3DS-toting mates. So long as you had their friend codes.

According to reports, though, some 3DS users were being abused by people through Letter Box. In certain cases, offensive material was being sent to minors.

"Nintendo always wants to provide a positive experience for all consumers and limit the risk of any inappropriate activity or misuse of a service. We feel it is important on this occasion to take this action," reads Nintendo's official announcement on the discontinuation of Letter Box.

As a result, Letter Box's SpotPass functionality has been turned off permanently, essentially spelling the end for the messaging service.

Letter Box

StreetPass itself remains intact, but barely. Only friends who are in the same physical space as one another will be able to 'StreetPass'. And only one note can be be transmitted at a time.

Ninty has also discontinued the Swapnote Special Notes service.

Finally, Nintendo is trying to raise more awareness about the Parental Controls embedded in its hardware. Interested parents can read about the service here.

Nintendo World Report
Chris Priestman
Chris Priestman
Anything eccentric, macabre, or just plain weird, is what Chris is all about. He turns the spotlight on the games that fly under the radar.