Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade • Hacker News Board

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#61

Post by SSLy » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 4:34 PM UTC

JohnBooty wrote: post #28

I'm nearly blind in one eye. The 3DS XL was the first time I ever saw 3D. In my life. I don't just mean "the first time I saw a stereoscopic 3D effect in movies or a game console." It was the first time I ever saw in three dimensions ever. As a human being. It's a little bit hard to describe my typical experience with you, since I've never had "normal" version and I don't know what it's like. I would compare my life…

>(Maybe modern VR headsets with stereo displays would work for me as well; I don't know -- I tried an early one in the 1990s and it didn't work for me, but obviously that was ancient tech)

I have a similar condition, and in fact only VR headsets and IMAX screens work for me. 3DS doesn't :<

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#62

Post by Razengan » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 4:36 PM UTC

I've been playing games all my life on many different platforms, but some of the best fun I've ever had has been on handhelds.

Even when I also have the PC or console version, some games just feel more at home on a handheld, and more appealing when you don't have to commit to a whole session of playing them.

On one hand, handhelds take less focus than sitting in one place staring in one direction, so you can play on them in bite-sized breaks, putting them away at any time and instantly resuming where you left off.

But on the other hand, something so close to your face, that you can snuggle with in any position anywhere, also has a level of intimacy not found in bigger screens and bulkier controls.

Nothing can compare to dozing off in bed while engrossed in a game with a captivating story, mechanics, and music..

Laptops are too bulky, and phones or tablets don't have built-in physical controls.

Which is why I'm a bit concerned about there being only one handheld left. The Vita was amazing and I still love it but Sony did everything they could to kill it off, and the Switch's success hasn't inspired them to try again.

If anyone feels like making a new handheld that anyone can develop for, my money is yours. :)

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#63

Post by bogwog » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 4:36 PM UTC

JohnBooty wrote: post #15

kawsper wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do still play on my PS Vita, and I'm still sad that Sony abandoned it quite quickly after it was released, for me it's a perfect portable "Risk of Rain" machine (although I've played other games on it too!), it's also cool that they've ported some PS1 games to it like Metal Gear Solid, I wrote about my experience here: http://kaspergrubbe.com/i-bought-a-ps-vita-in-2016-first-imp...

The PS Vita really deserved better. It really did so many things right. The OLED screen is still unmatched by portable consoles IMO. Sure, somewhat higher resolution or higher refresh rates would be nice, but those infinitely deep black levels? Just amazing. There are a few multiplatform games like Undertale for which I consider the PS Vita the best version.

The PS Vita is an awesome console for homebrew and game development. I've been working on a small cross-platform game, and used my Vita to both implement cross-compiling in my build system (to port to other systems later), and develop the game for both a touch screen and physical controller. Why bother carrying around a controller, android/ios device, and cables to develop a game when a single Vita will do!

If Sony and Nintendo would release their official SDKs for these dead consoles, maybe people would have less reasons throw them away. I don't understand why they're so defensive about it anyways.

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#64

Post by goalieca » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 4:36 PM UTC

Multicomp wrote: post #26

Nintendo insisted that the 3DS was not being replaced by the switch, in the same way that they told me that the game boy line would keep going after the DS began. Something tells me this is Nintendo hedging bets

It's been a decade running and 3 years since the switch has been released.

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#65

Post by jhatemyjob » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 4:38 PM UTC

datalus wrote: post #9

Hopefully Nintendo releases the SDK? It's been a decently active platform for indie titles and homebrew games. I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think the 3DS is covered by the same NDA as the Switch in terms of toolchain/docs/etc. I believe you can find those after signing up for a developer account at https://developer.nintendo.com/

ctrulib was pretty good when i used it in 2017

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#66

Post by JohnBooty » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 4:42 PM UTC

messe wrote: post #33

JohnBooty wrote: post #28

I'm nearly blind in one eye. The 3DS XL was the first time I ever saw 3D. In my life. I don't just mean "the first time I saw a stereoscopic 3D effect in movies or a game console." It was the first time I ever saw in three dimensions ever. As a human being. It's a little bit hard to describe my typical experience with you, since I've never had "normal" version and I don't know what it's like. I would compare my life…

> I'm not a brainologist, so I'm not sure why the 3D system on the 3DS works for me when nothing else does. I'm still nearly blind in one eye, and the 3DS relies upon a lenticular stereoscopic effect that requires two eyes. Maybe the newer VR headsets would work for me as well; I don't know. Not a brainologist either, just a guy with a maths/physics degree who works in IT. My first thought is that the 3DS was close e…

For folks missing an eye, "manual" parallax is one of the primary ways we do depth perception in real life - you get it for free by having two eyes; we have to move our heads around sometimes. =)

That's an interesting theory but I think that's not what's happening.

For those unfamiliar, the 3DS uses a lenticular screen. It renders two separate images: the "right" and "left" image. The one you see depends on your viewing angle. If my good eye was seeing both images, I believe I'd experience a sort of double vision or as least discontinuities.

Perhaps more to the point, the 3D effect disappears if I close my "bad" eye! So my "bad" eye is contributing... somehow.

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#67

Post by bitwize » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 4:42 PM UTC

JohnBooty wrote: post #28

I'm nearly blind in one eye. The 3DS XL was the first time I ever saw 3D. In my life. I don't just mean "the first time I saw a stereoscopic 3D effect in movies or a game console." It was the first time I ever saw in three dimensions ever. As a human being. It's a little bit hard to describe my typical experience with you, since I've never had "normal" version and I don't know what it's like. I would compare my life…

My mom had the same reaction upon seeing a 3D movie with polarized lenses for the first time. For years she was like "I don't see 3D, I only see 2D." Then she actually tried it and... wow! My guess is your situation is similar to hers: you have a "lazy eye" and the artificial 3D stimulus somehow provides enough feedback to allow your brain to focus your lazy eye in a way the natural world does not.

The eye and brain are fascinating things. One time I broke my eyeglasses and did without for a year. Then I got a new prescription and was a bit disoriented at how flat the world seemed, to my mind it was "like a PlayStation game". What had happened was, my brain had trained itself to use blurriness as a proxy for distance (I'm myopic), and the eyeglasses removed that.

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#68

Post by remus » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 4:43 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #29

I always try to imagine what the final production run looks like at a factory for one of these. Is there usually some sort of ceremony for the very last unit rolling off the line? Or does it just run towards the end of the shift as normal, everything gets boxed up and shipped to retailers as normal, there just....isn't another shift after that? What happens with all the manufacturing hardrware?

For things like this, they're generally produced in (large) batches on a line, then once the run is finished the line is retooled for whatever is next on the schedule.

If nintendo use a third party manufacturer then I can't imagine there was much ceremony. If they own their production facilities then maybe they had a little mini-party? Most likely it'd depend on the particular teams working in the factory and what the culture is like.

Having said that, they may not even have known when the run was finished that it was going to be the last (management still pondering whether to do another run, or stock from the previous run lasted longer than expected so no new product produced) so it may well have been a total non-event.

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#69

Post by JohnBooty » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 4:45 PM UTC

BHSPitMonkey wrote: post #53

JohnBooty wrote: post #28

I'm nearly blind in one eye. The 3DS XL was the first time I ever saw 3D. In my life. I don't just mean "the first time I saw a stereoscopic 3D effect in movies or a game console." It was the first time I ever saw in three dimensions ever. As a human being. It's a little bit hard to describe my typical experience with you, since I've never had "normal" version and I don't know what it's like. I would compare my life…

I've read many online claims from people who have said this about their first time in VR. Some even say the effect even carried over with them into the real world after leaving VR. You should give it a whirl!

I think perhaps I will check it out!

It's absolutely fascinating that you say some folks reported the effect carrying over into real life - do you perhaps remember where you read/saw that? It's not easily Googlable!

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#70

Post by WilTimSon » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 4:47 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #29

I always try to imagine what the final production run looks like at a factory for one of these. Is there usually some sort of ceremony for the very last unit rolling off the line? Or does it just run towards the end of the shift as normal, everything gets boxed up and shipped to retailers as normal, there just....isn't another shift after that? What happens with all the manufacturing hardrware?

I don't think there's much room for sentiment on a factory floor where most things are automated. It's nice to imagine there's some nostalgic engineer who grew up with Nintendo consoles and personally put the finishing touches on the last 3DS or something like that... but it's more likely that the last one got pushed out and they went on making all the other consoles instead. Manufacturing hardware can most likely be repurposed and, if not, simply gets sold off for parts.