Nintendo 3DS

Nintendo 3DS

Basic Information
Release Year	Mar 27, 2011
Product Type	Portable gaming console
In Production	No
Official Website	Nintendo.com

❗Article Status Notice: This Article is a stub

Notice: This Article Requires Additional Expansion

---

This article is underdeveloped, and needs additional work to meet the wiki's Content Guidelines and be in line with our Mission Statement for comprehensive coverage of consumer protection issues. Issues may include:

• This article needs to be expanded to provide meaningful information
• This article requires additional verifiable evidence to demonstrate systemic impact
• More documentation is needed to establish how this reflects broader consumer protection concerns
• The connection between individual incidents and company-wide practices needs to be better established
• The article is simply too short, and lacks sufficient content

How You Can Help:

• Add documented examples with verifiable sources
• Provide evidence of similar incidents affecting other consumers
• Include relevant company policies or communications that demonstrate systemic practices
• Link to credible reporting that covers these issues
• Flesh out the article with relevant information

This notice will be removed once the article is sufficiently developed. Once you believe the article is ready to have its notice removed, visit the Discord (join here) and post to the #appeals channel, or mention its status on the article's talk page.

Nintendo 3DS

Basic Information
Release Year	Mar 27, 2011
Product Type	Handheld gaming console
In Production	No
Official Website	https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Hardware/Nintendo-3DS-Family/Nintendo-3DS-Family-94560.html

The Nintendo 3DS is a handheld game console manufactured and distributed by Nintendo. It is the continuation of its predecessor, the Nintendo DS. The Nintendo 3DS had multiple revisions, including the Nintendo 3DS XL, New Nintendo 3DS, New Nintendo 3DS XL, Nintendo 2DS and New Nintendo 2DS XL, which makes up the full "Nintendo 3DS Family".

Consumer impact summary

• User Freedom: Due to efforts of the modding community, custom firmware can be installed on every retail version of Nintendo 3DS Family of consoles. With the use of custom firmware, many home brew apps can be used to restore the lost functionality of the online services.
• Many games that used Online Services are still playable but players will not be able to 100% complete the game. For example: Animal Crossing New Leaf will lose Dream Towns and some exclusive items on the island gift shop.
• User Privacy: Console is discontinued. Many games require a connection to the, now discontinued, servers, but are supported by 3rd party services like Pretendo.
• Business model: Focused on games that can either be purchased physically or digitally, some special editions made.
• Market Control: Not applicable.

Incidents

This is a list of all consumer protection incidents related to this product. Any incidents not mentioned here can be found in the Nintendo 3DS category.

Discontinuation of Online Services for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U Software

On April 8, 2024 Nintendo shut down online services for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U software. This shut down effects all software on Nintendo 3DS and Wii U and ends any online services. The only services that remain working today are Pokemon Bank and Poke Transporter.

Closure of eShop (March 2023)

Main article: Storefront shutdown#Wii U/3DS eShops (2012–2023)

On March 27, 2023 Nintendo shut down the Wii U and 3DS eShop. With the closure of the eShop roughly 2,000 games became unavailable for purchase. This includes roughly 450 digital only Wii U games, 600 digital only 3DS games, 100 Wii U games that are also available physically, as well as 300 3DS games that are also available physically and 530 virtual console games. Some of these games include Mario Kart 7, Super Mario Maker, Pokémon, Picross 3D, and more. As of now, over 1,000 digitally exclusive games can no longer be purchased and are not available on another console. It should be noted that of the 530 virtual console games, about 230 of them are available on Nintendo Switch Online service.

Faulty New Nintendo 2DS XL models

Editor's notice: This section is intentionally left incomplete, and data is currently being collected about this via the Nintendo Homebrew Discord community. Please contact them if you need to verify this information.

The New Nintendo 2DS XL (N2DSXL) is the final console revision of the 3DS line, releasing in July of 2017. Unlike previous models, the console is built with cheaper materials, risking a shorter lifespan of the console.

Via Nintendo Homebrew Discord:

Reasons to avoid the "New" 2DS XL model:

• Designed to be a budget console, so parts and overall build quality are cheap
• Hinge is both flimsy and very thin, meaning it cracks/breaks easily
• Known to have bad ICs, meaning very high rates of FCRAM and NAND failures
• Is liable to turn to dust when attempting to do repairs. (not an exaggeration)

See also

Link to relevant theme articles or products with similar incidents.

---

Add your text below this box. Once this section is complete, delete this box by clicking on it and pressing backspace.