Nintendo 3DS officially discontinued
Switch off.
After a nine-year run and more than 75 million units sold, Nintendo has officially killed off the 3DS.
Production has now ceased on all 3DS hardware models, including the New Nintendo 3DS and New Nintendo 2DS XL.
"We can confirm that the manufacturing of the Nintendo 3DS family of systems has ended," a Nintendo spokesperson told our sister site GamesIndustry.biz. "Nintendo and third-party games for the Nintendo 3DS family of system will continue to be available in Nintendo eShop, on Nintendo.com and at retail.
"The existing library of more than 1000 Nintendo 3DS games contains many critically acclaimed titles and can provide years of content to explore and enjoy."
There's no expectation that the 3DS eShop or online services will be affected in the near future.
Last year saw the arrival of Nintendo Switch Lite, a cheaper version of Nintendo's newer console aimed at younger fans. Its launch has been a success - and it won't be the last new Switch model to arrive either.
With Switch now doing the numbers and already providing various product options, now seems a reasonable time for the 3DS to go.
The 3DS was originally launched in Japan back in February 2011, and in Europe one month later. The long-awaited follow-up to Nintendo DS was designed to provide glasses-free 3D visuals, though this feature was always optional. It also included the wonderful StreetPass, which was not.
An XL-sized version of the system followed 18 months later, before the 2DS - a cheaper, chunkier version without stereoscopic 3D capabilities - in 2013. Both 3DS and 2DS were later revised again with the launch of the New Nintendo 3DS and 3DS XL (which added a thumbstick nubbin) in 2014 and the New Nintendo 2DS XL (which took the original 2DS idea and stuck it in the 3DS' clamshell) in 2017.
