true shopping playlist

hihihi~! i wanted to ramble real quick about something you're likely to hear in any nintendo-related video, or my layouts: the nintendo eshop themes. 

as you may know, for the past couple of decades or so, nintendo consoles have included an online store to buy games, apps, and *suspicious / angry gaze into the distance* dlc. and up until the switch, which was released in 2017, those online stores had their own music.

could you imagine that in the real world? i don't mean a store just playing the radio or a playlist. i mean a store actually having music of its own, a dedicated music team and everything. i can't think of such a place currently, and i can't really imagine a place that would, but it would be interesting, i think.

the dsi and wii had static themes-- and by static, i mean that they kept the same theme playing in the store all year round. i used to find the dsi's theme cute, but over time after hearing it in so many videos, it became somewhat grating to my ears. and the wii shop theme scares me. i can't explain it, but it feels empty, and not in a good way. combined with how the shop looks now that it's closed and there's nothing in it, it feels like the theme of a ghost town. but i know it's not supposed to be that way. if i had more positive memories with it, perhaps my feelings would be different.

anyway. the 3ds and wii u, however, had themes that would change every month (or few months as service slowed and eventually came to a close). out of the ones i can find, my favorite themes are june 2011, september 2013, january 2014, and july 2014. and you can really hear the care that was put into crafting the perfect ambience for the consoles. 

the very first theme, june 2011, sounds like a gentle awakening. a soft melody drifts through the entire song, all the instruments are dampened, and the percussion is soft. it makes me think of mid-morning sunlight filtering through gauzy white curtains. the rating theme is a slower remix of it.

the summer months sounded like beach levels or summer vacation episodes, december often had bells and cheery woodwinds, the spring months were fresh and bright, and january was smooth. i can't seem to find any for february, weirdly enough. but you know how nintendo is with their songs on youtube.

and with these themes, browsing the shop was really an immersive experience. having that background music alone allowed you to get sucked into looking at all they had to offer, even if you didn't buy anything. it all added to the atmosphere nintendo created within those consoles, of a different world. you know-- you had themes on the 3ds, you had the mii hub on the wii u, you had the channels on the wii. they were personal, meant to intertwine with your world as the window into a different(, cooler) one. and now it's just a menu. just a shop.

it's always been disappointing the switch is silent. that being said, people have unearthed a supposed theme for the eshop in the console's files. it was just never added. and honestly? i think that was for the best.

HEAR ME OUT OKAY-- it's not because i dislike the eshop themes or think the switch doesn't deserve it, but... with the state of the eshop, i think adding music into it would make it completely unusable. it's laggy all the time, is filled with slop (despite it supposedly being hard to enter?), and is overall just. a bad experience. i dread having to open it when i have to redeem a card for switch online. 

and this is because opening the eshop loads in... a browser??? the eshop's interface isn't loaded into the console, the console has to open a browser and then load the shop and all of its contents. which is why it's so slow. 

or at least, that's how i understand it. who knows how else nintendo decided to cut corners.

to sort of digress a bit, i also love listening to the music that came with the wii's free channels. the check mii out channel has my top faves. and as for the 3ds, i also like listening to the internet channel's theme. i remember that was my spacehey profile song back in... november / december 2023? it was mostly white and gray, with lots of white / gray gradients and that screen overlay, if you happen to remember it. i don't have any photos of it, but i think i left the code somewhere in google docs.