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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

#111

Post by justinweiss »

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…

Absolutely agree. I just got into 3DS development last year and it's been such an exciting development experience. The open-source tools are excellent (even supporting remote debugging!), and the system hits that sweet spot between being powerful enough to build interesting things and taking real work to make those things fast.

Over the last year or so I've been squeezing individual fps's of performance out of the PSX emulator and it's been some of the most fun hobby programming I've done in a long time.

Plus you can write for a platform with a 3D screen! How cool is that?

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#112

Post by mikepurvis »

coldpie wrote: post #52
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…

The Wii U eShop sold DS games with a variety of different display options: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCV8Y3lEPr0

The Wii U had a pretty natural default though, with the touchscreen on your lap as the lower screen, and TV as upper screen. That whole model was (rightly) tossed for the Switch, so now any games which really depended on it are a bit of a dead end.

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#113

Post by Macha »

gambiting wrote: post #31
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #7

Looks like it's finally time to grab all those games I held off on grabbing because my backlog was already extraordinary, lest I have to find them in a couple years on eBay at wildly inflated prices.

I mean, I've been completing my GameBoy and GameBoy Color collection recently, and even the big titles that everyone wants(Zelda, Pokemon, Metroid) are not crazy, the most I've paid was £20 each for pokemon games. Not sure why 3DS games would go sky high in prices with time.

There were a _lot_ of copies of Pokemon Red, Blue, Gold, Silver etc. sold.

There were not quite so many copies of SMT IV or Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright.

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#114

Post by Tiktaalik »

city41 wrote: post #107
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…

If picking up a 3DS, I highly recommend a "New" model. They include cameras that track your eyes, making the 3D effect much better. It's true the 3D effect is just a gimmick, but it's a very neat one. Games like Metroid Samus Returns are much better in 3D IMO. The game feels like an actual mini diorama is in front of you.

Yeah some titles use the 3D much better than others. Some early launch windows titles kind of do it weirdly and poorly. Pilotwings for example feels too strong.

Some of the best would be yeah Metroid and Luigi's Mansion 2. The 3D gives a real "diorama" feel.

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#115

Post by anthk »

derefr wrote: post #37
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

Nintendo has never really wanted to discontinue a platform. Their vision was always that developers could support old and new platforms together through funky cross-compact measures. • Did you know that the SNES’s CPU starts up in a “NES 6502 compatibility” mode, sort of like x86-64 processors starting up in 16-bit real mode? It’s fully possible to design and build a game entirely for the NES as a 6502-assembler code…

>AFAIK, literally nobody has ever fully exploited this, not even demoscene devs.

Not demoscene but I remember Pokemon and SML2 having custom frames and sprites.

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#116

Post by gbear605 »

redisman wrote: post #93
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…

There were only a handful of games that really required it. Most people I knew only used the 3D effect as a novelty every now and then. I wonder maybe a VR 3DS emulator could emulate it the best?

The problem is not just the 3D effect, but more crucially the two screens.

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#117

Post by [deleted] »

GhostVII wrote: post #95
echelon wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Chess is not a game based around collecting a fixed number of items.

[deleted]

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#118

Post by glouwbug »

lghh wrote: post #104
echelon wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> has at least 10 "must play before death" games Could you make some recommendations? I'd be very interested in your list.

Here's my rough list of games that you can play on a 3DS that are not necessarily 3DS games that I think are "must play" type games. Does not include all games that should be on the list. 1. LoZ: Ocarina of Time 2. Super Mario 64 (ds version) 3. Donkey Kong Country Returns 4. LoZ: A Link To The Past 5. Shin Megami Tensei: IV (maybe not "must", but you should give it a shot) 6. Earthbound 7. Super Mario World

Foundational list. Nothing tops Ocarina of Time

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#119

Post by derefr »

anthk wrote: post #115
derefr wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nintendo has never really wanted to discontinue a platform. Their vision was always that developers could support old and new platforms together through funky cross-compact measures. • Did you know that the SNES’s CPU starts up in a “NES 6502 compatibility” mode, sort of like x86-64 processors starting up in 16-bit real mode? It’s fully possible to design and build a game entirely for the NES as a 6502-assembler code…

>AFAIK, literally nobody has ever fully exploited this, not even demoscene devs. Not demoscene but I remember Pokemon and SML2 having custom frames and sprites.

IIRC neither of those games are examples of uses of the SGB OBJ layer. They're just uses of the SGB CHR layer (custom borders) and of setting sprite palettes distinct from the tile palette (seemingly-custom sprites.) Correct me if I'm wrong, though!

According to https://tcrf.net/Super_Game_Boy#OBJ_TRN_.28Object_Transfer.2..., the SGB OBJ_TRN command wasn't even intended to be used by games! And it was removed in all revisions of the SGB after the first. It's no wonder it went unused. I wonder what Nintendo were thinking, including it in the first place!

But also, to be clear, when I said "fully exploited", the "fully" part is important. :) I didn't mean that nobody has ever used these features in some trivial way in a GB game. (IIRC, the definitive example of a trivial use of the SGB OBJ layer, is in Donkey Kong '94.) I meant that nobody has ever really pushed these features to their limits. There's a lot that can be done with the SGB (https://gbdev.gg8.se/wiki/articles/SGB_Functions) that I've literally never seen a game doing, let alone doing something interesting with.

Using all the SGB features together, you could likely cook up a SNES-looking or GBA-looking game, running purely on the GB's Z80 CPU! Surely not something a time-constrained game studio would care to do; but a hobbyist, as a passion project? Sure, why not?

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#120

Post by northern-lights »

lghh wrote: post #104
echelon wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> has at least 10 "must play before death" games Could you make some recommendations? I'd be very interested in your list.

Here's my rough list of games that you can play on a 3DS that are not necessarily 3DS games that I think are "must play" type games. Does not include all games that should be on the list. 1. LoZ: Ocarina of Time 2. Super Mario 64 (ds version) 3. Donkey Kong Country Returns 4. LoZ: A Link To The Past 5. Shin Megami Tensei: IV (maybe not "must", but you should give it a shot) 6. Earthbound 7. Super Mario World

And a few Pokemon ones too with Emerald at the top of that list.
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