Three years after the release of the new Switch game, Nintendo has decided to retire the legendary 3DS console
In July, the gaming giant shut down Wii U and 3DS online stores in dozens of regions. Now, it has officially discontinued the 3DS handheld models, which were wildly popular until the Switch took over as the company's primary console. Nintendo posted a notice on its 3DS UK and Japanese pages stating that " manufacturing of the Nintendo 3DS family of systems has ended," according to Engadget.
You can still click through to individual model pages, such as the 3DS, 3DS XL, 2DS, and 2DS XL, but they all have the same notice. Nintendo's US has completely removed the 3DS page, and visiting it only redirects you to its homepage. You can, however, access the 3DS game list in the website's game store.
The first 3DS model was released in 2011, as a follow-up to the DS console with 3D screens. A year later, an XL model with larger screens was released, and then remastered versions of both games followed in 2014. Nintendo also released the 2DS, a cheaper 3D version, in 2013. Eventually, it designed a console called the 2DS XL, which became available in 2017.
It's worth noting that the company didn't abandon the 3DS family once the Switch came out, but it likely decided it was the right time to retire the console because it's no longer selling like it used to.
In a recent earnings report, Nintendo revealed that 3DS hardware sales were down 73% year-on-year in the year to March 31, 2020. Meanwhile, both the Switch and Switch Lite have performed very well even amid the coronavirus pandemic. The company sold 5.68 million Switch consoles in the three-month period to June 30, more than double the number of devices it sold in the same period in 2019.
