New 3DS Gets Killed By Nintendo, XL Version Still Alive

When Nintendo promised that it was not going to kill off the 3DS when the Switch first came out, millions of gamers let out a sigh of relief. Recently, these fans might have had to suck in air once again as the company just stopped production of the New 3DS in Japan. Now, it’s worth noting that the XL version of the handheld is still fine, but this development is understandably causing jitters.

On Nintendo’s Japanese website, the company announced that the New 3DS, which is the replacement of the discontinued Original 3DS, is no longer in production. This means that the only remaining handheld units by Nintendo are the 2DS and the 3DS XL.

This basically means that customers will now have to choose between a smaller version without 3D effects and a larger unit that does provide the effect but is not exactly that handy to carry around. Both products will still support the games that have been released for these platforms, however, so it’s not as if Nintendo just brought down the ceiling on the whole thing.

For anyone paying attention to the trend that the Japanese video game company has been following, however, this development is not exactly surprising. For one thing, Nintendo has been winding its focus on the 3D aspect down for years, Ars Technica reports. Not only is the feature costly, it seems to have had very little impact on sales or the experience of most players.

In the North American market, sales of the New 3DS unit have not exactly been stellar, with the XL proving to be several times more popular. In Japan, the difference is significantly acuter. In fact, the 2DS seem to be performing better as the default preference of users who want a more compact and portable handheld gaming platform.