Nintendo Will Support the 3DS Until You Die

You, your children, and your children's children, will smoke each other in Mario Kart 7 until Gabriel sounds the Horn of Judgement.

News by Nadia Oxford, Staff Writer

Updated on 4 May 2018

The Nintendo Switch is rolling along nicely, but the Nintendo 3DS is still hanging in there. Nintendo's 3D handheld system is getting robust support from Nintendo through the rest of 2018, and that support will supposedly continue until people buy the Switch on a "one person per system" basis. In other words: For a long time yet.

In a recently-published investor Q&A, current Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima and up-and-coming President Shuntaro Furukawa talked about the company's current fortunes and its future. When the pair was asked if the 3DS can "coexist" with the Switch, Kimishima said "yes," as he doesn't anticipate parents will buy the costlier Switch for each child in a household the way they generally do with the Nintendo 3DS.

Well the games start coming and they don't stop coming

It's easy to see where Kimishima is coming from. At this point in time, the Nintendo 2DS / 3DS is a budget line. A vanilla 2DS bundled with Mario Kart 7 costs less than $80 USD. The Nintendo Switch, by contrast, is $299 USD without a game.

Nintendo already has plans for the Nintendo 3DS through 2018 and into 2019. Mainline Pokémon games are making the jump to the Nintendo Switch, but we might see more secondary 3DS games in the vein of Detective Pikachu (which is a lot of fun!) help keep interest in the handheld stoked to a low but steady burn. And thanks to Atlus, the 3DS is still dishing out some great JRPGs. Keep on chugging, little guy.

Sometimes we include links to online retail stores. If you click on one and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. See our terms & conditions.

Nadia Oxford

Staff Writer

Nadia has been writing about games for so long, only the wind and the rain (or the digital facsimiles thereof) remember her true name. She's written for Nerve, About.com, Gamepro, IGN, 1UP, PlayStation Official Magazine, and other sites and magazines that sling words about video games. She co-hosts the Axe of the Blood God podcast, where she mostly screams about Dragon Quest.

PlayStation 5 Update Lets You Know If You're About to Play the PS4 Version of Game

Check yourself before you last-gen yourself.

Stardew Valley Just Got Beaches, Fish Tanks, Swimming Ducks, and a Whole Lot More

Nearly five years on, Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone just pushed what he says is Stardew's "biggest update yet."

Alien: Isolation Is Free on Epic and Just As Good as It Was in 2014

Get the motion tracker and don't go in the vents.

Shigeru Miyamoto Expresses Confidence in the Younger Generation of Nintendo

The legendary creator says the spirit will stay alive.