Nintendo has stated, in a statement sent to Gameindustry, that handheld consoles belonging to the 3DS range are no longer manufactured worldwide. This way, Switch becomes the only presence of Nintendo in the market of consoles at the moment.
The decision has also been confirmed through Nintendo’s official website, including the Spanish version, with a clear and concise sentence: “The consoles of the Nintendo 3DS family are no longer manufactured”. For the first time since 1989, when the original Game Boy was launched, Nintendo is in charge of a single game platform. Many users expected the Nintendo hybrid to take the place of desktop and laptop at the same time, and with the launch of Switch Lite everything pointed in that direction.
“We confirm that the manufacturing of the Nintendo 3DS family of systems is over. Nintendo and third-party games for the Nintendo 3DS family of systems will continue to be available at the Nintendo eShop, Nintendo.es and in retail stores. The current library of more than 1,000 Nintendo 3DS games contains a large number of critically acclaimed titles and can still provide years of content to explore and enjoy.
With nearly ten years of life and a memorable catalog, Nintendo 3DS is coming to the end of its life cycle. It went on sale in Japan, Europe and North America in early 2011, and has since sold 75.87 million units worldwide. These sales include all the variables that were launched from the console: Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo 3DS XL, Nintendo 2DS, New Nintendo 3DS, New Nintendo 3DS XL and New Nintendo 2DS XL. However, in spite of its numerous versions and its catalog, this console did not manage to match the success of its predecessor, Nintendo DS, which accumulated 154 million units sold all over the world, crowning itself as the best-selling portable of the big N company.