With the 3DS eShop announced to be closing in March of 2023, it seemed fitting to have a look back at the handheld. However, to talk about the Nintendo 3DS, we first need to talk about the Nintendo DS.

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A BonifieDSuccess

It seems generally agreed that Nintendo wasn’t completely confident that the Nintendo DS was going to be a success. When they first introduced their new handheld, they spoke of it as a “third pillar” next to their consoles and their Game Boy line of handhelds. With the Wii already a huge success, Nintendo was taking a similar gamble with their new handheld – like the Wii, the DS would strongly emphasize a different way to control games than the norm, with the touchscreen having players directly interact with games in ways that were vaguely similar to the Wii’s motion controls, at least on a conceptual level. Whether people would buy into this control setup, or the unorthodox two-screen handheld that housed it, was as-yet undetermined.

Of course, the Nintendo DS would go on to be a rousing success, and the touchscreen interface would prove to have a similar mass appeal as the Wii’s motion controls, an appeal that Nintendo helped along with casual-friendly games like Nintendogs and Brain Age. However, where the Wii’s motion controls would exhaust many traditional gamers, the Nintendo DS would continue to enjoy excellent support in traditional games along with the more casual games it received.

Even the technically-superior PlayStation Portable handheld couldn’t touch the Nintendo DS – it was cheaper, more accessible, the instant load times of its cartridges made for a much better handheld gameplay experience, and the lower cost of development compared to the PlayStation Portable made it much more attractive for many developers to create games for Nintendo’s handheld.

Partway into the Nintendo DS’s life, it received one of many iterative updates, the Nintendo DSi, which added a camera, an online shop for digital-only games, and quietly dropped the backwards-compatible support for Game Boy Advance games that was present in the original model of Nintendo DS. Without a new successor to the Game Boy line of handhelds, it was pretty clear that yes, the Nintendo DS was the true successor to the Game Boy line of handhelds, and Nintendo would undoubtedly be going into their next generation of handheld gaming on strong footing, possibly picking up with a successor to their DS line of platforms now, rather than a new Game Boy.

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Taking On New 3Dimensions

Throughout its history, Nintendo had toyed with different ways to incorporate 3D into its products, such as the Japan-exclusive Famicom 3D system, and the most infamous of course being the Virtual Boy, probably Nintendo’s greatest failure. Always eager to look for new innovations, Nintendo felt the time was right to use a new 3D technology, this time using autostereoscopic liquid-crystal display technology that would require no eyewear or additional equipment to view.

In addition, the 3DS would build on the success of the Nintendo DS by including full backwards-comptibility with Nintendo DS games. It would build on the DSi by incorporating an updated version of the DSiWare service, the eShop, which would include all of the old DSiWare games, as well as new games and even full-release games in digital form. And it would build on the success of the Wii, by including the popular user-created Mii characters, and a handheld version of the beloved Virtual Console line of emulated versions of past-generation games.

On top of all of this, they of course made it more powerful, with a launch that included a port of the console game Street Fighter IV to really push that this handheld was capable of console-quality visuals. Another launch title, Nintendogs + Cats, was a sequel to one of the best-selling Nintendo DS games, indicating Nintendo’s continued support for more casual players. With games like Pilotwings Resort indicating Nintendo’s dedication to bringing back old franchises more traditional gamers loved.

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Stall3D at the Starting Line

While the 3DS launch was far from an outright disaster, it was in many respects disappointing. There were no “killer aps”, truly must-have games that players could only play on the 3DS – the best games on the platform at the time was generally considered to be The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, a port of a 13 year-old game… and Nintendo’s next major release would be a port of the similarly-old Star Fox 64. The stereoscopic 3D technology was liked by some, disliked by others, but generally seen as unimportant when it came to the gameplay of the games on the 3DS, and many players simply opted to turn the feature off entirely. In addition to this, the handheld’s $250 price tag gave pause to a lot of prospective buyers when compared to the $150 launch price of the original Nintendo DS. Due to a combination of these factors, sales of the handheld fell short of Nintendo’s projections.

Nintendo responded to this by slashing the price of the 3DS to $170 within six months of the handheld’s launch, compensating early adopters by giving them ten free downloadable ports of classic Game Boy Advance games, purportedly as thanks for being a part of the 3DS “Ambassador’s Program”, and a few months later the 3DS finally got what was arguably its first “Killer App”, Super Mario 3D Land, the first 3D Mario game designed exclusively for a handheld platform. Thanks to a combination of these factors, the sales of the 3DS turned around, and after a rough start, the system would go on to be seen as a great handheld much in the same way the original Nintendo DS was.

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Continu3D Success

As Nintendo tends to do with its handheld platform, they released multiple iterative editions of the 3DS over the years – the 3DS XL boasted a bigger build and improved screen one year after the original model launched, and then a year later those who wanted a less-expensive version of the 3DS and didn’t care for the 3D features could opt to get the 2DS at $130. Then in the following year, Nintendo released the New Nintendo 3DS, which included improved head-tracking features, faster menu load times, and slightly-improved hardware that could play higher-quality games (though ultimately, only seven games required this new hardware).

And like clockwork, Nintendo released some of its best-selling series, receiving praise from critics and great sales to match. Mario, Mario Kart, Pokemon, Animal Crossing, Super Smash Bros., Luigi’s Mansion, Zelda… all received one or even multiple entries that were universally-loved. What’s more, the 3DS is where the Fire Emblem series truly came into its own and proved that it could be a top-tier franchise, earning sales on par with Nintendo’s other major franchises.

Of course, all of this was happening while Nintendo’s console, the Wii U, was going down in flames, with abysmal sales. The 3DS would eventually see ports of multiple Wii U games, including Yoshi’s Woolly World, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, the NES Remix games, and Hyrule Warriors. People would often speak of the 3DS as a lifeboat keeping Nintendo afloat during a terrible storm, much as the original Game Boy was often pointed to as what “saved” Nintendo during the Nintendo 64 years (although in all fairness, the Nintendo 64’s sales were good, even if the console lagged behind the competing PlayStation).

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Like Flicking a Switch

Ultimately, Nintendo’s shift to the next console after the Wii U would spell the end of the Nintendo 3DS. In announcing that the Nintendo Switch would be a hybrid console, both a handheld and a device capable of hooking up to the TV like a traditional console, Nintendo reinvigorated hope in its console market, but it was also generally seen as Nintendo consolidating its two markets, using its consistently-strong handheld platform as a hedge to insure that its console market wouldn’t fail this time.

Suddenly, people were focusing on the upcoming Nintendo Switch, and 3DS games would see declining sales as a result. Major games like Metroid: Samus Returns seemed to be largely overlooked. The underwhelming sales of the Latest Mario & Luigi games ultimately contributed to series developer AlphaDream closing its doors.

To give you an idea how quickly the 3DS declined, in in 2016, the Nintendo 3DS received 144 games in the US. In 2017, the year the Nintendo Switch launched, the Nintendo 3DS received 117 games. In 2018, it received only 51. Its last release was in 2021, a year in which only 8 games were released on the 3DS (with five of those coming from the same indie developer).

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Succeeded the Switch, But Not Replac3D

It could be easy to dismiss the 3DS now that the Nintendo Switch has reached even greater heights, and brought to the handheld format games that the 3DS could only dream of running. However, the lack of backwards-compatibility on the Nintendo Switch means that to dismiss this platform is to leave behind an entire library of great games, and that’s only the start of what the 3DS had to offer, still has to offer, for players still inclined to seek it out.

On the topic of backwards-compatibility, there is of course the 3DS’s backwards-compatibility with the entire library of Nintendo DS games, as well as its eShop’s backwards-compatibility with DSiWare games. Furthermore, the 3DS had an entire library of Virtual Console games from multiple game platforms, many of which are not represented on the Nintendo Switch Online service’s Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Genesis, and Nintendo 64 apps.

It also bears mention that the 3DS hosted a multitude of unique features that are missing in the Nintendo Switch – the unique Street Pass feature allowed for players to interact passively with others, the camera allowed players to take 3D photos and videos, the 3DS proudly made use of its Mii characters while the Nintendo Switch hides them away. The 3DS allowed players to sort games into folders, to change their presentation using themes, and watch movies via Netflix… all features that are sorely lacking on the Nintendo Switch.

However, we shouldn’t gloss over the games. As much as it frustrated players that the first year of the DS’s lifespan was so full of ports of older games, the 3DS versions of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Star Fox 64, and The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask are generally seen as the definitive versions of those outstanding games. Fire Emblem Awakening is generally regarded as one of the finest games in that series. The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds is generally agreed to be one of the best 2D-style Zelda games to see release in a very long time (well, mostly 2D). Kid Icarus: Uprising is considered by many to be a woefully underappreciated reimagining of a classic Nintendo franchise. Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon would mark the last time that series would use the much-loved “National Pokedex” to allow you to truly “catch ’em all”. Metroid: Samus Returns clearly impressed Nintendo so much that they brought back developer MercurySteam to develop the fifth mainline entry in the series, Metroid Dread. Detective Pikachu would form the basis for what may be the best videogame movie to ever be released (though that’s not a high bar to cross).

Given the massive success of both the Nintendo DS and the Nintendo Switch, one might be tempted to see the 3DS as a halfway point between the two, but suffice it to say I believe that there’s plenty enough to like about the 3DS that it should absolutely be seen as a truly great handheld as well, even if it isn’t quite as revered as its predecessor and successor.

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