Production of Nintendo 3DS has been Discontinued

Via Nintendo’s Japanese website the announcement has been made that the production of the Nintendo 3DS has been discontinued. The image above is from Google Translate website .

This information was not mentioned via press release or any other official announcement from Nintendo.

What does this mean ?

Essentially the 3DS family of systems ( New 3DS / New 2DS / 2DS , 3DS XL ) is no longer being manufactured by Nintendo. We assume this also applies to other regions of the world. You might be able to find new systems in stores now ( September 21st 2020) but the hardware will not be replaced once all the previously manufactured systems have been shipped out and bought by consumers. This may take a few weeks or months to totally sell out of the new product. It just depends on supply and demand of individual markets.

What about 3DS online gaming and the 3DS E-Shop ?

Currently (September 21st 2020) Nintendo is still supporting the e-shop so you can still download digital software. You can currently play 3DS games online via Nintendo’s online services. Currently we don’t know when the e-shop will close or when the online services will end. Nintendo previously announced the Nintendo DSi discontinuation date and gave everyone several months to prepare for the conclusion of online services for the system. Nintendo gave everyone very specific final dates to make final video game purchases and to play games online. Nintendo is expected to announce the discontinuation date of online services in the near future (probably next year ).

In a statement to gamesindustry.biz Nintendo said the following :

“We currently have no plans to end any existing online services for the Nintendo 3DS family of systems. Online play and Nintendo eShop will continue to be available and it will be possible to access and redownload all previously purchased content in the foreseeable future.”
( Source )

Of course they would say that. This statement isn’t surprising because they would want to announce this on their own schedule. Simply put the 3DS e-shop and online services can’t go on indefintelty and sometime in the future it will end.

Why is this happening ?

The Nintendo 3DS was originally released in 2011. The New Nintendo 3DS released in 2015. In recent sales data the Nintendo 3DS has decreased 88% while the Nintendo Switch has increased 11.1%.

Source ( Page 14 )

The Nintendo 3DS family of systems (including 2DS XL, 2DS, New 3DS, 3DS, 3DS XL) is no longer doing well enough to justify continued production. 3DS’s time has passed and Nintendo is moving on.

With this news I expect the Nintendo 3DS family of systems to continue to loose digital game support. The Nintendo 3DS still occasionally gets new game releases each week but the amount of games have slowed to a trickle. The Nintendo 3DS has given players around the world many excellent video games that can be played in 3D and 2D. This day was inventible but yet I am still sad to hear this new.

- Adolph Vega Director / Founder / Editor-In-Chief of 3Dor2D.com