The Nintendo Switch is having a moment in modern-day gaming. According to GameRant, “It has sold 84.59 million units after just 49 months on the market, making it one of the fastest-selling consoles of all time.” In all the hubbub over the Switch, one could be forgiven for dismissing the 3DS, Nintendo’s previous handheld, as totally outmoded. Although the 3DS might just seem like a similar handheld to its predecessor, the DS, the 3DS was really a technological miracle of its time – one worthy of continued investment from Nintendo. The 3DS is a dual-screen console which natively (meaning: without anything else added on) supports 3D viewing “on” or “off” for most games. This last feature, in particular, was revolutionary because until the invention of the 3DS you needed 3D glasses or a really complicated and bulky system in order to display 3D pictures. That changed with the advent of the 3DS, which crammed this capability into one small portable console. It not only supports the red and blue colors you would see with 3D glasses, but every color on the visible spectrum. Nintendo should continue to invest in gaming compatibility with the 3DS because it has a rich technological legacy, lots of people still enjoy playing on the 3DS, and many others still have not had the chance to try it yet.

Sadly, people are forgetting the importance of the 3DS. Some very memorable games are The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, Fire Emblem: Awakening, and Pokemon Sun & Moon. As I write, the number of available games for the 3DS/2DS on the official Nintendo website are rapidly decreasing. In the span of about 3 minutes, I saw the 3DS games go from 1,000 down to just 927! Plus, some of these games are just being hidden on their website, for example if you search for Mario 3DS games, only one result comes up. Super Mario Maker and New Super Mario Bros. 2 are still available for purchase, but don’t come up when you search for them. Whereas the Nintendo switch is getting all the fame, with a current total amount of games at 14,051. (At the time of writing)

This number doesn’t even account for all the separate games in the expansion packs, given to you when getting Nintendo switch online and Nintendo switch online + Expansion pack. There are a lot of separate games available from the NES, SNES, N64, and even Sega Genesis! (And now Gameboy and Gameboy Advance as well.) Taking all this into account, the total games for the Nintendo switch are probably around 15 thousand!

Nintendo has its own reasons for shutting down the 3DS, of course. According to Nintendo life, this turn of events “is part of the natural life cycle for any product line as it becomes less used by consumers over time.” Although this statement has some validity, there are many holes in this argument. Sure, less people are using it than at launch, but people like me, people who have never used it, or got it and use it daily, weekly, even just monthly still have reasons to get it and keep it. By shutting down features of the 3DS, people who love playing, or who have never played, will never get to experience the best of the 3DS, only the mess that Nintendo has now left us with. Essentially it takes away the reasons to buy or use the 3DS from the 3DS. According to the same Nintendo life article, “Online play will also still be available ‘for the foreseeable future’ for any titles you already own, past March 2023.” This means that until March of 2023, games that use online multiplayer are still playable. This doesn’t apply to all games though. Games made by Nintendo like Super Mario Maker, New Super Mario Bros. 2,  or anything needing to be connected to Nintendo’s servers and can’t be played anymore (multiplayer or other functions don’t work, single player usually doesn’t rely on Nintendo servers, so it should work fine). Super Mario Maker broke when Nintendo shut down their servers, since the only thing you can do is play levels. You can’t upload levels anymore.

Although the 3DS might just seem like a similar handheld to its predecessor, the DS², the 3DS was really a technological miracle worthy of continued investment from Nintendo. It supported a variety of games considering its virtual console, support for other DS games, and its own 3DS games. That’s more than 3 different consoles!¹ It also supported a variety of different inputs like the microphone, stylus, or the buttons and Circle Pads (the little circles you move around). This provided a great experience for many different game enthusiasts. This gives no surprise on why many 3DS enthusiasts still love playing the 3DS today, yet with the 3DS servers shutting down, they won’t get to play their favorite games or get to share their experience with others. There are many 3DS lovers, ones who have had the 3DS since its release, but this one joined the party 10 years late! Yet they still loved the 3DS,  “There is something inviting about the 3DS, from the small jingle it plays when it turn it on to the little shopping bag that bows to you at the eshop, to unwrapping your downloads like presents- Just navigating through the menu is full of small sights and sounds, and the 3D effect on the upper screen seems to exist simply because it’s neat and kind of magical.”

Yet there are still many people who have not had the chance to try the 3DS yet. With the 3DS servers shutting down, they will never be able to experience the joy that people had when getting their 3DS for the first time. Just look at what Miyamoto (an important figure at Nintendo) says about the 3DS, “The Nintendo 3DS system is sometimes said to just be a ‘Nintendo DS system with higher specs.’ But it’s really much more than that. It’s a game system with an entirely different charm. That’s why, for the customers who purchase it, I want them to fully enjoy the features of this new machine.” Yet a few years later (actually about 13 years later), they are shutting down the eshop, leaving the 3DS essentially useless, with no online multiplayer, no street pass, a very interesting feature of the 3DS, not even the ability to buy digital 3DS games!

You might be thinking, sure people haven’t gotten the chance to play the 3DS, but video games can be harmfully addicting. And you’d be right, according to Wiliam Siu, who used to be a game developer, “The over-the-top experiences and rewards built into video games can stimulate our brains to release dopamine. Dopamine, the powerful ‘feel good’ neurotransmitter, motivates us to seek more of these pleasurable activities.” Although video games can be addictive, if you or your child happen to get an addictive game, then you can either delete it, or you can use the built-in parental controls, which when enabled can limit time on specific games or play time in general. This is shown in Nintendo’s article about 3DS parental controls. The support article notes that, “Parental Controls can be set at any time on Nintendo 3DS family systems. It’s possible to configure these options while setting up the Nintendo 3DS family system for the first time, and then after this point they can be altered via System Settings.”

The 3DS is one of the most technologically advanced hand-helds of its time, and it does not deserve the fate of being forgotten. This phase-out of the 3DS gnaws at me, since I personally never got to play on a 3DS. With Nintendo shutting down the 3DS servers, most of the fun of using a 3DS is fading away as people leave with the servers. It gets rid of what the 3DS lived up to, leaving us only with only a few exclusive features that were built in. This matters to everyone because it means that people who did or didn’t get to experience the amazing features of the 3DS will never get to experience it again. By the 27th of March, 2023, the physical copies of games are going to be the only ones you can buy. Digital games can only be stored on the 3DS for so long. They will reach their expiration dates. These points apply to many other old consoles as well, not just the 3DS. There were many good consoles like the N64, Sega Dreamcast, and PS3 that were very popular in their time that many people would also like to preserve. And soon in the future, this fading out process will apply to the switch, when there will be another more popular console out there, leaving the history it made behind.

Works cited:

Simelane, Smangaliso. “Why Is the Nintendo Switch so Successful?” Game Rant, 14 Jan. 2022, https://gamerant.com/nintendo-switch-success-hardware-versatility-game-sales-pandemic/.

Gray, Kate. “When Does the 3DS and Wii U Eshop Close? Nintendo EShop Closure Guide.” Nintendo Life, Nintendo Life, 27 Mar. 2023, https://www.nintendolife.com/guides/when-does-the-3ds-and-wii-u-eshop-close-nintendo-eshop-closure-guide#:~:text=Here’s%20Nintendo’s%20statement%20on%20the,plenty%20of%20time%20to%20prepare.%22. 

Hetfeld, Malindy. “Falling in Love with the Nintendo 3DS 10 Years Late.” Eurogamer.net, Eurogamer.net, 27 June 2021, https://www.eurogamer.net/falling-in-love-with-the-nintendo-3ds-ten-years-late. 

Siu, William. “I Make Video Games. I Won’t Let My Daughters Play Them.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 2 Oct. 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/02/opinion/video-game-addiction.html#after-story-ad-2. 

“Setting Nintendo 3DS Parental Controls.” Nintendo Support, 25 Mar. 2011, https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Support/Parents/Safety/Nintendo-3DS-Parental-Controls/Setting-Nintendo-3DS-Parental-Controls/Setting-Nintendo-3DS-Parental-Controls-907330.html#:~:text=Parental%20Controls%20can%20be%20set,be%20altered%20via%20System%20Settings. 

Endnotes

1.  An interesting fact is that the 3DS can play two Mario Kart games, namely Mario Kart DS and Mario Kart 7.

2. Nobody knows what DS stands for, so there are a lot of games that make fun of that.