The Weekly Wizard: Issue #10: Should We Be Saying Goodbye to the 3DS?

Hello and welcome to The Weekly Wizard, the part of Miketendo64 brought to you by the nefarious outlaw responsible for Wizard Dojo, where I talk about current goings-on with Nintendo, or take a look at their past.

The Nintendo Switch has been out for nearly a month, and with its release and rapid success, Nintendo has almost immediately abandoned its predecessor, the Wii U. The Nintendo Switch serves as the logical evolution of Nintendo hardware, as it combines their home console output along with that of their handheld systems. Nintendo no longer needs to separate development teams between hardware divisions, and no longer needs to relegate certain franchises to certain systems.

Given the Wii U’s commercial failure, it isn’t too big of a mystery that Nintendo have entirely jumped ship with their home console games over to the Switch. But should they be doing the same with the 3DS?

Now, the 3DS was of course a much bigger success financially than the Wii U was, even if it never quite reached the insane success of the original Nintendo DS. But the fact is that – with the exceptions of Pokemon Sun and Moon – the 3DS isn’t selling as it once did. The advent of mobile games have taken up a large chunk of the handheld gaming market, and largely because of that, the 3DS was almost destined to never reach the same success as its DS predecessor.

The 3DS has had a great run since it was released back in 2011, and has seen many memorable games. But perhaps its prolonged existence might end up hurting the Switch. After all, if the Switch is both a home console and a handheld, half of that equation will lose some focus so long as the 3DS continues to be supported.

Perhaps now is the right time for Nintendo to put all of their eggs in one basket. If all of Nintendo’s development teams who would be working on Wii U games are now supporting the development of Switch titles, why should the 3DS still be dividing developers who could also be working on Nintendo’s newest system?

Don’t get me wrong, I love my 3DS. But I also love my Wii U, and that doesn’t change that I think Nintendo did the right thing from a business standpoint by shifting its focus away from it and onto the hot-selling Switch. It just feels like they should do the same in regards to the 3DS. As long as it sticks around, it’s just that many more recourses being used on older hardware when it could be used to boost the Switch even further.

I’ve long-since adored Nintendo’s trend of supporting a home console and a handheld in every hardware generation. But the fact is that the gaming landscape has greatly changed from what it once was. Nintendo combining their home consoles and handhelds into one entity was the best thing they could have done. But so long as the 3DS continues to be supported by the Big N, there is something being taken away from the Switch and its appeal.

As much as I love the 3DS, I think it’s time for it to hang up its metaphorical boots, so that it can, in essence, live on through the Nintendo Switch, just as the Wii U has done before it.

That’s all for this edition of TWW. What do you think? Should the 3DS head off into the sunset to let the Switch flourish to its full capacity? Or does my thinking the discontinuation of the 3DS being a good idea make me a homicidal maniac? Feel free to let me know in the comments, and check out my site WizardDojo for more of my opinion pieces, including reviews for video games and movies.