Nintendo Pulls The Plug On 3DS Production

After a long run, it looks like the end has arrived for the Nintendo 3DS. Nintendo has officially discontinued the dedicated handheld, which means that it will no longer be producing new machines. With the death of the 3DS, the Switch is officially now Nintendo's sole focus and only console offering.

A look at Nintendo's Japanese website tells us everything we need to know about the status of the 3DS, with a banner above the available models saying that the handheld has been discontinued. While there's no direct mention of the decision to discontinue the 3DS on Nintendo of America's website, the webpage has also been updated to only show references to the Nintendo Switch.

Of course, the 3DS hasn't been a major focus of Nintendo for years at this point. While Nintendo still promoted the 3DS in the early days of the Switch, sales have been dwindling for quite some time now, and less and less attention has been given to the 3DS as time goes on. Nintendo, to its credit, released a few games for the 3DS in 2019 (Kirby's Extra Epic Yarn and a remake of Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story), but there have been no first-party 3DS releases in 2020.

In the Switch era, Nintendo has held up the 3DS as a less expensive way to get into the Nintendo ecosystem. Still, the decision to discontinue the 3DS comes as little surprise, as the Switch can be used as both a home console and a handheld given its hybrid design.

Even though a lot of us saw this announcement coming, there's no denying that it's the end of an era. The 3DS launched to lackluster sales in 2010, but through a series of price cuts, Nintendo was able to turn things around for the struggling handheld, which can now boast 75.87 million units sold here at the end of its life.