After nine years of good and loyal service, production of the legendary Nintendo 3DS console has officially stopped, reveals Nintendo.
For the first time since 1989, Nintendo will presently offer just one gaming platform available to be purchased, the Nintendo Switch. The Kyoto company has recently declared the finish of the game for the Nintendo 3DS, whose creation formally stops today. This news comes nine years after the arrival of Nintendo’s double screen comfort; the judgment applies to the six models of the 3DS family: Nintendo 3DS, 3DS XL, New 3DS, New 3DS XL, 2DS, and New 2DS XL.
A stop that can be clarified by the transient ascent of the Nintendo Switch, which has now arrived at 61.44 million duplicates sold, nearly as much as the NES. This information likewise incorporates marketing projections for the Nintendo Switch Lite, the current swap for the 3DS, which had just sold 8.82 million duplicates in June 2020.
Nintendo 3DS: Almost 10 Years In Numbers
When it was released in 2011, the Nintendo 3DS had sold in Japan at record speed: 370,000 copies in just 24 hours. In barely one year on the Japanese market, it had already sold 4.7 million units. It had finally sold 44 million copies in 2014, well ahead of its competitor the PlayStation Vita, which had around 8 million copies sold as of that date. As of March 2020, the 3DS had sold 75.77 million copies worldwide.
Thus, Nintendo 3DS stops, leaving behind many exclusive games that will have marked their generation: Mario Kart 7 (18.7 million copies sold), Pokémon X & Y (16.45 million), Pokémon Sun & Moon (16.18 million), Pokémon Alpha Sapphire & Omega Ruby (14.2 million), New Super Mario Bros. 2 (13.3 million), Super Mario 3D Land (12.7 million), Animal Crossing: New Leaf (12.5 million), Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (9.5 million), Pokémon Ultra-Sun & Ultra-Moon (8.7 million) and Tomodachi Life (6.5 million).
Nintendo 3DS, which introduced truly innovative 3D technology without glasses at the time, must and now give way to Nintendo’s hybrid consoles. With 406 million games sold in just three years, the Nintendo Switch has already exceeded sales of 3DS games over ten years on the market (384 million in all). Asked by our colleagues from Game Industry, a Nintendo spokesperson wished to specify that “Games from Nintendo and third-party publishers will remain available on the Nintendo eShop, on Nintendo.com and in stores”.