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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

#211

Post by Razengan »

mikepurvis wrote: post #122
Razengan wrote: post #62

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…

There are a whole bunch of those OGA-derived handhelds (see https://obscurehandhelds.com/ ). I have an RGB10 on its way to me right now. Unfortunately, the library of native titles is very, very small, basically just Tux Kart and whatever open source engine recreations have been packaged for the particular distro you're running on it. So it's mostly about emulation, which means that what you're seeing is a pretty far…

Ah thanks, some of these look pretty cool, like the Retroid 2 and the RG350, and I love Panic so of course I know about the Playdate. :)

The problem as you say is the lack of native titles, and an uncertainty about how long the devices will be supported for. In this day and age an official distribution channel like the App Store/eShop is important too, even if it's just a website you can download from onto an SD card.

But I'll try one of these out!

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#212

Post by justinweiss »

read_if_gay_ wrote: post #187
justinweiss wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 PS…

> I just got into 3DS development last year and it's been such an exciting development experience That sounds really cool. Do you have any pointers for getting started?

devkitpro (https://devkitpro.org/) is the toolchain and base libraries, and sets up a package manager for downloading others.

For the basic stuff you can use the usual C libraries. I picked up a lot by reading and tweaking the examples, which are installed along with the toolchain: https://github.com/devkitPro/3ds-examples

libctru, installed with devkitpro (https://libctru.devkitpro.org/) is where a lot of the platform-specific APIs live. There are also some higher-level libraries built on top of it

A good understanding of ARM will take you a long way. A lot of what documentation there is (especially on 3dbrew.org) assumes you understand the terms and general architecture of an older ARM platform. This book https://www.brucesmith.info/arm-a32-assembly-language/ was great for building enough understanding that I could understand most of the official reference manuals. From those, I found the ARMv7 reference manual and the ARM11 MPCore Technical Reference Manual to be the most useful, and I refer back to the ARM instruction set reference card a lot.

Besides that, it's reading and modifying the source of other projects, and trying things out. If you look at homebrew apps like ctrQuake (https://github.com/masterfeizz/ctrQuake), you'll notice there's usually not a lot of platform-specific code -- most is just standard C / C++.

Hope that helps. Just like anything, it's knowing enough to get started (a toolchain, some C, and some examples) and using your questions and ideas to draw you into the next thing to learn.

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#213

Post by seventhtiger »

coding123 wrote: post #48

Sorry about this, as it's an old argument that everyone here knows, but I wish Nintendo would stop making systems and just focus on their games on competing platforms. They do it for the money. So if I want to have the next Zelda, Mario/MK, DK I have to pay the 300 cost for the system first, then the price of the game ($60 on release day?) I mean, I get it from their perspective. Every Nintendo I purchase the number…

I heard this a lot in the WiiU era, but having this opinion during the Switch? It's the most unique and successful console. If Nintendo drops their hardware we will only have phone to play with on the go, and it's obvious why people prefer and are willing to spend much more on quality handheld gaming hardware.

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#214

Post by mewse »

echelon wrote: post #203
zapzupnz wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that was on an old 3DS, that was probably true. On the "New" 3DS, though, with the additional eye tracking to make sure the 3D effect is stable, it's superb.

Does the eye tracking work with older games, or is the 3D baked into the game engines?

Yes, the eye tracking works with old games just as well as with new ones; it seems to require no software support; it just does its thing, dynamically adjusting the parallax barrier so that the left and right frames provided by the game will be seen by the correct eyes, even if those eyes are off-center, moving, or etc.

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#216

Post by LukeShu »

jldugger wrote: post #140
komali2 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: You're right, that was rude of me lmao. This is an UNORDERED LIST: 1. Super Mario Bros 3 2. The Legend of Zelda (1986) 3. Super Metroid (1994) 4. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past 5. Super Castlevania 6. Pokemon: Silver/Gold 7. Advance Wars: Dual Strike 8. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (tecccchnically an n64 game though) (Majora's Mask would make this list if the DS version wasn't a butchered shadow of…

So many questions. Like, do you really need pokemon to live? And why specifically Super Castlevania, which is regarded as kind of a garbage castlevania (the player sprite is bigger so you get less of a heads up on whats ahead, and it's not part of the "metrovania" pantheon). Why Fusion and Super Metroid? Does the original LoZ hold up as well as say Link's Awakening? Why are there only 3 companies represented on this…

> Does the original LoZ hold up as well as say Link's Awakening?

If you're only going to play one LoZ, play A Link to the Past. (I think "play the 3rd game" is pretty good advice for a lot of Nintendo series.) ALttP is when they figured out the formula; I played it after I played most of the others, and after playing it every other LoZ (at least the 2D ones) all kinda felt like a copy of ALttP, like they're each just remaking a different aspect of it (and adding in their own little gimmick).

The original LoZ holds up, but is a very different game than the later games. The world is empty for you, there are no towns, just wilderness; it's being a kid exploring the woods behind your house, pretending you're alone in the world. The loss of sword beams when you take damage made me feel that taking damage is getting hurt, rather than just some meter in the corner of the screen that I need to keep up; more so than any other game.

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#217

Post by anon9001 »

mmebane wrote: post #186
anon9001 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were to go a step further, the eShop actually trusts the client and you can download the entire 3ds library direct from Nintendo with the right hack. Google "freeshop" and read their FAQ if you're curious. I won't link it here in case it offends anyone.

Nintendo fixed that loophole back in August 2018, didn't they?

Oops, you are correct. I didn't think they'd be able to fix it. Thanks for the update, it's been a while :)

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#218

Post by takeda »

EddieRingle wrote: post #175
takeda wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if 2DS was foldable I would buy it instead of 3DS. Didn't really care about the 3D.

The New 2DS is the foldable version.

Neat, won't buy it since aleady have 3DS, I really wish they created it earlier.

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#219

Post by frosted-flakes »

Geezus_42 wrote: post #209
frosted-flakes wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even better, if you load custom firmware[1] on it, you don't need the special cartridge at all, and you can dump your game cartridges right to the system's SD card (this only works for GameBoy Advance and 3DS games, but not original DS games). If you buy digital games from the eShop, this also gives you an effective way to back them up, including save files. [1]: https://3ds.hacks.guide/

It works for DS games also. I had a few on mine.

That's true, but it requires TwilightMenu++[1] and is not as straightforward as the usual method for 3DS and GBA games. Also, I don't think DS games will show up on the home screen like 3DS and GBA games do.

[1]: https://www.cfwaifu.com/twilight-menu-3ds/

Re: Nintendo 3DS discontinued after almost a decade

#220

Post by Gamemaster1379 »

anon9001 wrote: post #217
mmebane wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nintendo fixed that loophole back in August 2018, didn't they?

Oops, you are correct. I didn't think they'd be able to fix it. Thanks for the update, it's been a while :)

Funny story, this loophole existed for both the Wii U and 3DS eShops. While 3DS got it patched, the Wii U is still vulnerable.
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