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Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#81

Post by dTal »

DCKing wrote: post #58

The 3DS, in particular the "New" models, I think are really recommended to pick up cheap. They are well built devices that are supremely hackable with access to lots of fun games. The 3DS library is good despite somewhat lacking in diversity. But the 3DS also has native compatibility with the entire excellent DS library, and after hacking it can also run the entire great GBA library without emulation (like Matroshka…

Beyond playing games, can you use them for anything else? How hard is it to program them?

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#82

Post by tasogare »

komali2 wrote: post #75
DCKing wrote: post #58

The 3DS, in particular the "New" models, I think are really recommended to pick up cheap. They are well built devices that are supremely hackable with access to lots of fun games. The 3DS library is good despite somewhat lacking in diversity. But the 3DS also has native compatibility with the entire excellent DS library, and after hacking it can also run the entire great GBA library without emulation (like Matroshka…

Yes! Don't forget you also get GameBoy Color and GameBoy games. IMO this massive library (N3DS, 3DS, DSi, DS, GBA, GBC, GB, SNES, NES) has at least 10 "must play before death" games in them (for people that care a lot about videogames, anyway). Of course all of this can also be achieved on a PC with a simple 10$ amazon controller and free emulators, if you're comfortable pirating games.

I’ve played a GBA and a DS game on emulator and this is far from the real experience, especially for the DS one. The new 3DS, DS lite and GBA SP are such nice hardware it’s part of the experience.

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#83

Post by dpiers »

My first job coming out of college was working on a multi-platform game engine, and my first task was assembling a 3DS prototype board[1] and porting the engine over.

It was horrible and fantastic at the same time. The debugging tools were poor, most of the documentation hadn't been translated to english yet, and testing the dual-camera rendering pipeline required hunching over the desk to be in the sweet spot for the parallax to work.

I still love that kind of low-level development, but these days python and shell scripts pay the bills. RIP 3DS, and thanks for the memories.

1: https://www.engadget.com/2010-05-17-is-this-a-prototype-of-t...

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#84

Post by echelon »

komali2 wrote: post #75
DCKing wrote: post #58

The 3DS, in particular the "New" models, I think are really recommended to pick up cheap. They are well built devices that are supremely hackable with access to lots of fun games. The 3DS library is good despite somewhat lacking in diversity. But the 3DS also has native compatibility with the entire excellent DS library, and after hacking it can also run the entire great GBA library without emulation (like Matroshka…

Yes! Don't forget you also get GameBoy Color and GameBoy games. IMO this massive library (N3DS, 3DS, DSi, DS, GBA, GBC, GB, SNES, NES) has at least 10 "must play before death" games in them (for people that care a lot about videogames, anyway). Of course all of this can also be achieved on a PC with a simple 10$ amazon controller and free emulators, if you're comfortable pirating games.

> has at least 10 "must play before death" games

Could you make some recommendations? I'd be very interested in your list.

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#85

Post by letitbeirie »

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?

Factory has a retooling shutdown and then commences making something else if economy is good. If not, factory still has shutdown but the only thing commencing is an awkward all-hands meeting and a lot of paperwork.

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#86

Post by echelon »

umvi wrote: post #76
perardi wrote: post #38

I wonder what the game plan is for offering these games in the future. The dual-screen setup obviously doesn’t map to the Switch, so it’s not just a simple eShop port like you’d have for an old SNES game. I am mostly thinking about Pokémon. They’ve got this rich new Pokémon Home system to transfer between generations, but that’s reliant on having functioning older hardware. Now, there’s a massive pool of functional 3…

I'm honestly surprised Pokemon is still around. The first one came out in like 1996, and it was initially addictive because there were a fixed number of pokemon to try to collect (150). But each iteration was basically a carbon copy of the previous gen with some map and monster changes. 7(?) gens later and now there are what 500? 600? More? I just don't understand the motivation to collect something now that you can…

> I'm honestly surprised Pokemon is still around.

I'm honestly surprised chess is still around. It's basically the same game with the same rules from centuries ago.

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#87

Post by ihuman »

perardi wrote: post #38

I wonder what the game plan is for offering these games in the future. The dual-screen setup obviously doesn’t map to the Switch, so it’s not just a simple eShop port like you’d have for an old SNES game. I am mostly thinking about Pokémon. They’ve got this rich new Pokémon Home system to transfer between generations, but that’s reliant on having functioning older hardware. Now, there’s a massive pool of functional 3…

Pokémon Home doesn't support any of the 3DS games; Pokémon Bank does. You can transfer from Bank to Home, but not the other way around.

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#88

Post by jamesgeck0 »

umvi wrote: post #76
perardi wrote: post #38

I wonder what the game plan is for offering these games in the future. The dual-screen setup obviously doesn’t map to the Switch, so it’s not just a simple eShop port like you’d have for an old SNES game. I am mostly thinking about Pokémon. They’ve got this rich new Pokémon Home system to transfer between generations, but that’s reliant on having functioning older hardware. Now, there’s a massive pool of functional 3…

I'm honestly surprised Pokemon is still around. The first one came out in like 1996, and it was initially addictive because there were a fixed number of pokemon to try to collect (150). But each iteration was basically a carbon copy of the previous gen with some map and monster changes. 7(?) gens later and now there are what 500? 600? More? I just don't understand the motivation to collect something now that you can…

IIRC, it was actually possible to collect every Pokémon across all the games released on 3DS. A service facilitated transferring them between games. Several of the rare Pokémon were related to limited time events, but the opportunity was there. I’m sure it’ll be possible to get pretty close to a complete collection by the end of the Switch lifespan as well.

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#90

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

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

The 3DS was released in February 2011, that makes it one of the longer lasting consoles of recent generations.
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