Nintendo has announced they’ve discontinued the Nintendo 3DS.
The Kyoto game maker has discontinued its popular handheld predecessor nearly ten years after it originally launched, back in early 2011. The notice on the official Japanese Nintendo 3DS page reads:
“Manufacturing of the Nintendo 3DS family of systems has been discontinued”
As of March of this year the Nintendo 3DS has sold nearly 76 million hardware units and over 383 million units with games software. The 3DS was backwards compatible with the DS, and was the last Nintendo console to feature native, hardware-base backwards compatibility.
The original 3DS came with stereoscopic 3D effects, which some games used to generate 3D effects without the need for 3D glasses. It launched alongside its rival – Sony’s PlayStation Vita, and went on to sell quite a lot more units – with Sony discontinuing the PS Vita in early 2019.
Despite the focus on 3D, Nintendo eventually released a 2DS version of the hardware, dropping its clamshell design and the 3D hardware effects. Later they released an XL version with a bigger screen, and even later released a New 3DS, New 3DS XL, and finally the New 2DS XL, each of which featuring improved hardware.
Do you own or did you own a Nintendo 3DS? What model? What are some of your favorite games for the platform? Sound off in the comments below!
