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I say this Lots of history – it didn’t have much of a life before the Nintendo 3DS.
It happened a year after I moved to New York. Apart from my housemates and a couple of friendly acquaintances, I didn’t know many people, and certainly none who played video games with me. It was a sunny fall day in 2014 when Nintendo released its free demo for Super Smash Bros. 4 on the 3DS Portable System. The competitive fighting game’s release, a month from now, was slated to be my best time of the year. Had celebrated every Smash throw before him. Inconceivable snacks, hours of screaming in basements full of friends and friends of friends abandoned in former homes. How Smash 4As launch approached, I prayed for a good versus online mode.
I loved the demo, but sitting alone on the bed, I quickly got bored of hitting Smash 4CPU of. I stuffed my pearl pink 3DS into a backpack and walked over to the nearest coffee shop. In the backyard, I drank too strong a concoction and practiced Zelda’s aerial combos. I was absorbed, not noticing the people around me and hoping that, in a space more suitable for flashy readings and Tinder appointments, no one would notice me. I looked up briefly between sips of coffee. Just people. So, I noticed them: three Nintendo 3DS, all on a table, and all running the Smash 4 manifestation. Whoa.
I walked over to the table and introduced myself, a little too tall. Two programmers, a video game developer and a musician. They invited me to sit down and play. We exchange friend codes. It was my first multiplayer match against humans; they were good too. It turned out that they lived a couple of blocks from me. After the friend codes, we exchange numbers. A month later, when Smash 4 It came out in its entirety, there would be a party, and many later, with many screams.
After that, everything got better. My neighbors introduced me to their friends, who introduced me to the arcades, bars, and events frequented by New York’s welcoming network of working adult gamers. At one o’clock, I met my current partner of four years. In another, I met a video editor who recommended me for my first full-time journalism job. In 2018, when Smash Ultimate released for the Nintendo Switch, I was able to fill every room in my Brooklyn apartment with friendly faces and screaming.
the end of an era
Nintendo has sold more than 75 million 3DS since its launch in 2011, 14 million more than its prized Nintendo Switch. Nine years later, last night, Nintendo announced that it had discontinued the device and its immediate family: the 3DS XL, the 2DS, and the 2DS XL. It was a versatile little thing: dual displays (for maps and menus), foldable (for storage), 3D (with a lever), and touchscreen capable (a stylus inside). It was easy to love, but nine years later, just as easy to leave.
Technology was not what the 3DS sold. Few games made the most of the 3DS’s two screens. On single screen consoles, maps and menus appeared with the push of a button; a dedicated full screen was unnecessary. And without the second screen, the 3DS would have been half as thick; no need to fold. Then there was the whole 3D theme, which, if switched to “max”, would Fire Emblem: Awakening You fight too dizzy for me to focus. However, the pencil; It was fun. A whole world of drawing games opened up, and it felt good to touch menu options with a pen when my button muscles were atrophied.
