READY TO TAKE ON THE FUTURE
Death of the 3DS
Originally published to The Reel Deal
A couple weeks ago Nintendo announced the discontinuation of the 3DS line of handheld consoles. The news isn’t exactly new, but I feel like there are important points that were not touched on by most. Namely, what’s next for handhelds and why this news is bigger than you’d think. Now that we’ve had time to mourn our lost childhood friend, I think it’s about time to dig up the old DS grave and take a post-mortem look at how Nintendo effectively killed a lineage dating back to the ancient era of 1989.
Way back in time - before the Berlin wall was even taken down - Nintendo created a revolutionary gaming device, The Gameboy. I’m not going to talk much about it, because if you don’t know you’re living under a rock, but through various iterations the Gameboy evolved into the Gameboy Advance SP. The one true handheld to rule them all, so popular that everybody either had one, or knows somebody who had one.
What came next was the announcement of the DS, which turned out to be even more popular. What’s important is that during the DS announcement, Nintendo specifically stated that no, this will not replace the Gamebody.
Lo and behold it did. Everybody casually agreed to ignore what Nintendo was saying and take the DS as the next successor to the Gameboy, since it not only was backwards compatible with the Gameboy library, but was the next step in gaming on the go. If this sounds slightly familiar, it’s because Nintendo has done the exact same sales tactic with the 3DS and the Switch, save for a few major exceptions.
Given that the Switch is a hybrid console, both at home and on-the-go, people think that maybe the Switch is the unofficial successor to the 3DS, but that just doesn’t sit right.
Sure, the Switch Lite is more comparable to a portable, handheld console, but that’s not what defines a Nintendo handheld. Nintendo handhelds have always been supplementary to the main stage of Nintendo consoles. They’re places where Nintendo could try out bold, new ideas without the repercussions of developing a fully fledged AAA game. The Switch Lite doesn’t have backwards compatibility with the 3DS, like how the 3DS had with the DS and before that the DS with the Gameboy. Not to mention, Nintendo handhelds are designed to fit in your pocket and the Switch Lite just doesn’t do it like the 3DS could. Overall, it’s too alien to continue the legacy of the 3DS and Gameboy.
With the discontinuation of the 3DS – and it being tangentially related to the Gameboy – Nintendo has closed the market to handheld consoles. No other competitors survived after the failure of the PS Vita, that’s our storybook ending to it all. The next best thing would be mobile gaming on our phones, but does anybody really count that? AAA games have watered down releases on phones like Fortnite, or they’re infested with ads. That’s no replacement.
After singlehanded keeping Nintendo relevant through the Wii U, you would think they would keep the 3DS alive, but no. Our generation was the last to trade Pokemon with friends, play pictochat on the bus, or to scramble looking for our lost DS stylus. All that’s left ashes and dust and overpriced 3DS units from scalpers looking to profit from it being discontinued. Rest in Peace, little buddy.