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What is mind-boggling to me is that it includes an actual, physical, hardware Gameboy Advance CPU in it for when it's playing Gameboy Advanced games.

I was one of the people who used the 'Ambassador Program' due to paying ~$250 USD or so for it up front (I pre-ordered the blue one, was hyped in the years leading up to it, read every rumor, loved it to death). The program gave a bunch of free games, some not on the eShop, as an apology for the extra $70 or so cost when they sharply dropped the cost of the console not long after release.

I was happy with it.

Mario Kart Super Circuit was a part of my childhood growing up, and I played that one not too rarely. Using the already-amazing swivel-joystick with it was a dream.

Knowing it was actually running on a real-life GBA CPU, like the old one I used to have and played games on all the time growing up, somehow makes it even more special of a memory.

Wow. Thank you for writing this article, Rodrigo. Much love. <3 :'))))

> What is mind-boggling to me is that it includes an actual, physical, hardware Gameboy Advance CPU in it for when it's playing Gameboy Advanced games.

The reasoning why as pointed out by the article makes it even more mind-boggling to me. It includes the GBA CPU almost by accident, because Nintendo took a Matroshka doll approach to backwards compatibility.

The Nintendo 3DS contains the entire system architecture of the Nintendo DSi for backwards compatibility (the DSi CPU also functions as a supervisor CPU of the system), which is mostly an overclocked variety of the original Nintendo DS architecture. The first two Nintendo DS models contained a GBA slot for backwards compatibility and therefore also contain the GBA's original ARM7TDMI. The Nintendo DS also used this as an auxiliary processor for various things. The reason the GBA hardware is there is because Nintendo kept shipping their previous gen hardware in the new generation twice over.

As part of the that Ambassador Program you mention, Nintendo released a boot firmware for the 3DS called "AGB_FIRM" to boot into Game Boy Advance mode (another being "TWL_FIRM" to boot into Nintendo DS mode). If you hack your 3DS today it can be made to load other Game Boy Advance software and essentially achieves perfect backwards compatibility and runs GBA games with perfect accuracy, modulo any GBA peripherals that were popular.

I wonder how far down exactly the 3DS matrioshka goes. GBA also had a full GB on board, but not only for backwards compat: it actually served as a sound co-processor for contemporary GBA games.

The DS dropped support for GB/GBC games and consequently the eshop versions of game boy colour games on 3ds are emulated, so there's your break

The Game Boy ran at 5V logic and the GBA 3.3V; my understanding is that there were some technical hurdles to supporting both on the GBA which Nintendo was happy to be rid of-- the Game Boy Micro, the last model in the Game Boy line, also only supported GBA games for that reason.

Also because the micro would look even more ridiculous with a full-size cartridge sticking out the top

> ridiculous

We have very different tastes. The Gameboy Micro is the most adorable piece of hardware I have ever seen.

This wasn't that unusual though? The PS2 contains the PS1's CPU and uses it for I/O when it isn't being used for backwards compatibility with PS1 games. The PS3 contained the CPU/GPU of the PS2 in early versions for PS2 BC (https://www.psdevwiki.com/ps3/PS2_Compatibility). It's only with later PS3 iterations that the PS2 hardware was removed in favour of software emulation for BC.

> What is mind-boggling to me is that it includes an actual, physical, hardware Gameboy Advance CPU in it for when it's playing Gameboy Advanced games

Sony did similar things.

The playstation 2 needed a IO chip so Sony picked the PS1 CPU. Then pass execution to it when playing a PS1 game.

And if I remember correctly, in the first revisions of the playstation 3 they included a ps2 CPU and GPU. I don't think they served a purpose when not running ps2 games though. They later remove them in favour of emulation to presumable save costs.

The wii has GameCube hardware and the Wiiu is basically just a faster wii.

The Wii U isn't just a faster Wii. It specifically contains 2 GPUs, the Wii U GPU and the Wii GPU. CPU is bigger and better but same architecture.

The Wii however was almost just a faster GameCube. CPU literally just clocked higher and a bit of a better GPU. Because the idea was for it to be super cheap to produce.

The Wii is a faster Gamecube. From memory, the CPU runs at 700-something MHz instead of 485 (?) and the graphics are faster too.

The Wii extended the life of Gamecube games nicely, with a Wii component cable (which are still available cheaply) you get good quality output on modern TVs. It also has the Gamecube controller ports, so your original controllers work.

The Wii can emulate N64 games as well, a few made it to the Virtual Console, and there are 3rd party emulators you can install via the Homebrew channel. The GC controller is not bad for playing N64 games.

It's such a small console that i still have it hooked up under under my TV next to the Switch.

> It's such a small console that i still have it hooked up under under my TV next to the Switch.

Same here kinda. I've done similar with a WiiU. The WiiU is backwards compatible with the Wii, it literally boots into Wii firmware! Meaning with a little homebrew it can be modified to load Gamecube games and run them without the need for emulation. Nintendont even supports a variety of controllers to play gamecube games including the WiiU gamecube controller adapter.

I dump my Wii and gamecube games on my actual Wii and can load them up in the virtual Wii on the and WiiU.

3 generations running (borderline) natively on the one console.

Interesting, i didn't realise the WiiU had such similar hardware to the Wii. I passed on the WiiU so never really paid much attention to it.

Sega Genesis did something similar for Sega Master System compatibility - it included the Z80 CPU as part of its sound architecture.

Commodore 128 included one because it was cheaper than resolving the architectural issues that bugged the z80 on their CP/M cart :)

> includes an actual, physical, hardware Gameboy Advance CPU

That's an old trick (though no less cool). The GBA had a GBC cpu in it for backwards compatibility, and it used a physical switch to change modes, toggled by the cartridge itself. And iirc the PS2 reused the PS1 cpu as a component on the board for I/O, so it was available for backwards compatibility as well (though with emulation help for other components).

GBA switching to GBC mode turns out to be combination of both hardware and software. There's a physical button that is read by the BIOS to see if it wants to perform a mode switch to GBC mode, then the BIOS triggers the mode change.

But that button is also responsible for making the cartridge bus actually function with GB/GBC cartridges. If you switch into GBC mode without the button being pressed, nothing can be read from the cartridge. (Normally the register bit that switches to GBC mode is locked out and only the BIOS can write it, but if you are executing code in the BIOS, a timed DMA transfer can perform that write.)

> And iirc the PS2 reused the PS1 cpu as a component on the board for I/O

Which has some interesting implications for softmodded systems. I play my PS2 games via Ethernet off a Raspberry Pi Samba server—it’s incredible to me that it’s possible and works so well, but because it’s using the PS1 CPU for I/O you can’t use it for PS1 games.

Ditto the Genesis, which used a Z80 for audio and Master System backwards compat

Fun fact: Walmart started selling them for the reduced price several days before the official price drop and end of the Ambassador Program's claim period.

Thanks to a post about it on reddit, I was able to get the reduced price and the free games. Felt like I had cheated the system even though I barely ended up playing the free games.

Holy cow, that's freaking crazy. Great catch, and good eye! I guess they were more valuable for me since I had 'paid' for them, and felt I needed to play them in order to maximize my value, haha!

The GBA CPU is part of the NDS CPU, so that's why it's in there.

It's fairly likely that you own several of that CPU (ARM7TDMI), or a close relative, without realizing it. It was pretty common as an "I need something stronger than an 8051" embedded controller prior to the introduction of the Cortex-M family.

My original iPhone 2007 uses an ARM7TDMI.

The Sega Mega Drive (Genesis) had a Master System inside and it was often used as the sound co-processor for Mega Drive games. You could play Master System games with a simple cartridge adapter.

NDS has a GBA chip. GBA has a GB/GBC chip. PS3 has a PS2 chip (emulates PS1) PS2 has a PS1 chip (used for IO etc in PS2 mode) Etc

Although the approach nowadays seems to be emulation (or not including backwards compatibility).

It's even stranger to me then that they never offered any GBA games outside of the limited Ambassador program. I was under the assumption that they were displeased with the performance of GBA titles, but it seems like that might not have been the case.

which is sad because my 2DS XL is basically my ultimate retro game machine. Once I homebrewed it and tossed in a 64gb mSD card it can hold all the NES, SNES, GB, GBA, GENESIS, N64, DS, 3DS roms I could ever want/have time to play. You can even setup the GBA roms to run like an 3DS Ambassador game.

To this day I'm still confused as to why nintendo passed up millions of dollars from Nintendo addicts by not adding GBA & N64 virtual console games in mass to the eSHOP

After a very slow start the 3DS ended up being one of my all time favourite consoles. I never had an N64 so the excellent 3D remasters were the first time I played Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask. Full DS back compat was a huge boon (make sure to hold Start to avoid gross non-integer screen scaling) and the range of homebrew and emulated systems a softmodded unit support makes it a very compelling little device.

The smaller New 3DS is also one of my all-time favourite console designs and I bought a load of the silly faceplates because they looked cool.

The other thing I really appreciate: I was able to call up Nintendo and buy two new official batteries for mine and my wife’s units when they started to age out. They were something like £15 each and I could swap them out without disassembling the system. Not something you often see these days.

My ADHD got the best of me during the pandemic. I ended up buying 3... New nintendo 3DSXLs. I imported one from Japan and converted it to US rom. I love these for travel. The 3D effect is so cool, and I like how you can turn it off. The battery life is fantastic. Now like all hobbies, when something gets scarce and I lust and hoard the object, I need to liquidate since you can't play 3 consoles at the same time.

While you have 3 consoles you should play Tri Force Heros with a couple of friends!

Get a fourth and do Four Swords!

If you can do something to prevent the battery from going bad (or find a source for replacement batteries in the future), I'd just hold onto them tbh.

I bought a (deep breath) New Nintendo 2DS XL a while ago; it's the last iteration of the DS line of games, plays all DS, DSi and 3DS games (and there were only a handful of games released specifically for the "new" DS) so that's ~15 years of gaming history it supports. I try to pick up DS games where I find them, although finding good deals on them is already difficult - some titles like Bravely Default or whatnot still go for 60 euros around here.

There's a LOT of shovelware for the DS as well though, I'm skipping those.

What a brilliant stroke of genius to allow the 3DS’s depth setting to be adjusted by a physical slider that’s enormously accessible. I’m not sure what research led to their using this mechanism to adjust something so foundational but it made all the difference in the world insofar as the usability of the 3D feature goes.

Right, you would expect depth-enabled screens to have become a regular feature on touchscreen devices by now -- what with face ID, it knows how far away your eyes are and would be able to adjust that lever automatically.

This is part of an excellent series https://www.copetti.org/writings/consoles/

One of my favorite feature of the jailbroken 3DS is the NSUI app [0]. The official Virtual Console releases made it possible to play certain old Nintendo games on the 3DS. But turns out the same wrapper (it’a not an emulator so much better performance and compability is straight given) can be used for _any_ game as long as the system is supported. So basically the 3DS became the perfect handheld to play old NES/SNES/GB/GBC/GBA games pixel perfect.

0, https://3ds.eiphax.tech/nsui

One other thing I only realized about the 3DS a couple of years ago: the bigger microSD card you use it becomes slower. Afaik the whole console scans the whole storage block level so after a certain point (64GB and above) it becomes plainfully slow. Especially if you play GBA injects > the 3DS quasi reboots itself in that mode so the console scans the storage again.

> Before system version 3.0.0, OTP memory was never hidden, meaning that with the help of any exploit, the OTP keys could be extracted without problem.

Oh man, I remember this. Back in the day, hacking a 3DS required downgrading to firmware 3.0.0 to extract the OTP, but 3.0.0 was not fully compatible with the New 3DS so if you were doing it on that model, simply closing the lid while on the old firmware would permanently brick your console. Good times.

Love this series!

If anyone wants to do homebrew for thr 3DS check out https://github.com/devkitPro/libctru

I hope Nintendo never gives up on the hand-held the-entire-console-in-your-hands experience.

I also hope a larger indie industry of handheld gaming develops.

It seems the imminent doom of advanced hand held devices is cloud gaming, including running consoles at home and streaming to your phone.

It all boils down to what everybody does with their wallets. I miss my GBC.

I don't see it dieing at all. Hardware just keeps advancing, while hardware requirements are stagnating.

I believe the switch is a big success for 2D indie games (think stardew valley, hades, dead cells). Those game concepts work and good 2D graphics will never look outdated.

I doubt people will buy into anti-consumer streaming-schemes to play great games which could run on a potato.

I highly doubt it. Stadia shutdown, while the Switch and Steam Deck are both a huge success. The latency in cloud gaming and reliability on having a stable network connection are still issues for many people. Not just that, but I don't think most gamers want to pay for another subscription which will always be a thing for cloud gaming and even then you still need some kind of hardware to play on anyway, so why not a good handheld? Even PC manufacturers like Asus are making their own handheld (RoG Ally), Switch 2 and Steam Deck 2 are basically guaranteed. If anything handhelds will just keep getting better and seem to be increasing in market share.

I just hate that Sony killed off the PSP, but I can understand why & it's the same reason for steam deck (and other variants being released that are more powerful) success; games aren't very exclusive anymore and unless you tightly integrate your main console with your handheld (like Nintendo, who went so far as to make them one & the same) then companies will just be creating an unnecessary divide these days.

Think of it as if Nintendo released a home console as well as the Switch; it would wouldn't be a sustainable system at all.

What I find funny is that people praise Nintendo's "genius" for making a handheld that docks to play on TV "so innovative"...meanwhile PSP Go with it's TV dock sitting there like "guys, remember me?" (I love the PSPGo, it's so freaking cute).

Chips are only going to get more powerful and smaller, you can already play a lot of games on a pi, I imagine you'll be able to play the current gen in something similar in a decade.

I've actually been thinking about building a handheld console for my daughter as fun project

These write-ups are brilliant. I've been getting into GB/GBC architecture as I want to make a game for the platform, but I hadn't yet found this article so thank you OP for posting it/Rodrigo for writing it <3

These articles are all so great! I loved reading the ones on the SNES and GBA. My dream is to work on the software that powers these video game systems, but I’m entirely lacking in that domain. One day, I would love to work on a portable console. It’s really helpful to read, so a huge thanks to the author.

The triangle count on the mario example seems reversed. Super Smash Bros Brawl (2008) for the Wii has 3,049 triangles but fully modeled buttons? The description says the 3ds version has 31 more triangles and I'm just not seeing how that's correct. Is this an error or am I missing something?

Being Stereoblind, I never got the appeal. The only obvious thing happening when turning on 3D was the instant dip in image resolution.

The 3DS 3D effect really didn't work at all for people with strong prescriptions. Because most glasses will distort your edge of view with different wavelengths at different intensities, the effect totally falls apart.

For the longest time this effect was super intense for me for the 3DS power light, and it made it look like the light from the power LED was just piercing through the case of the 3DS, while the cutout for the LED was almost pitch black.

(for people with glasses and iPhones: look at your homescreen, look at a notification dot. Put the phone at the edge of your field of view. Notice the number dance around in the space. Works with Discord notification dots on a desktop screen as well).

> The 3DS 3D effect really didn't work at all for people with strong prescriptions. Because most glasses will distort your edge of view with different wavelengths at different intensities, the effect totally falls apart.

I have a strong prescription (-7 in each eye, and astigmatism) and the 3D effect worked flawlessly, at least on the revised "new" 3ds model. As far as I know -7 is considered a "strong" prescription.

I have a crazy strong prescription but it looks great with my reading glasses.

Consider getting lenses made of a different material. Are yours polycarbonate? Tell your lensmaker you need a material with a higher Abbe number or V-number.

Sorry, that's your eyes. The resolution per eye didn't change and if you could see 3D it doubled horizontally.

Though some games did cut the framerate in 3D mode

I think many games had antialiasing enabled in 2D mode, which was disabled in 3D mode. I guess the sudden appearance of jagged edges (which may be mitigated by stereo vision) may be perceived as a dip in image quality.

According to the article you're commenting on, the resolution didn't dip when 3D was activated.

I distinctly recall a dip in resolution, propably softwareside. dont recall the game though. it looked like a cut in vertical resolution, as soon the slider left the 2d position goove

I'm pretty sure I remember Street Fighter 4 doing this

Anti aliasing would be turned on / off, that's the difference

Honestly, it's hardly noticable for people with stereoscopic vision either. It's mostly headache inducing, so people play with it disabled.

Thus why the 2DS undercut so many sales for the 3DS.

One of the more creative uses of the 3D was in Metal Gear Solid 3. After Snake gets the eye patch, the 3D stops working in the first person view IIRC

After a bit of searching, I think this might be a "commonly repeated but not actually true". A few people saying no, most weapons go 2d when you aim throughout the game, and a couple stay 3d throughout.

I thought it was great; you might've only used the first generation, but it was much improved on the New 3DS.

One thing I remember is that it made it much easier to interpret scenes with effects like particles, glowy stuff, smoke etc.

Sure. There were plenty that liked it. The technology was divisive, at the very least, and complaints of headaches were fairly common. I would say my personal group of gamer friends was probably split 50/50.

The original 3DS and 3DS XL gave me headaches. Whatever they tweaked with the New 3DS XL made it much more manageable because it does some adjustments with face tracking.

The original 3DS was definitely a "hold it at the right angle and keep it there" while the New 3DS tracking allowed for a lot more flexibility with how you hold it for the 3D to not be disorienting.

My problem with my New 3DS XL is that the power button is right where I put my pinky finger when using the shoulder buttons so playing Super Metroid sometimes ends with me "setting the 3DS down" on a desk while playing it, and my pinky bumps the power button which immediately autocloses whatever app you were running. Maybe there's a config option to not do that lol

Was so disappointed when I got a new 2DS XL and it had 2 absolutely unusable TN screens. Never really used the thing because of it.

The aftermarket has always done more for Nintendo's handhelds than they themself have. Aftermarket LCDs make the GBC and GBA truly enjoyable gaming handhelds versus the nigh-unusable messes they are out-of-the-box.

The Switch is probably the only real exception, currently; but I could just be ignorant and there are much better mods for it.

Last Christmas I replaced my old GBA screen with an IPS panel, and holy cow it is like night and day. It made me truly realize how powerful the GBA was, and how beautiful the games could be.

Back in the day we played the hell out of them because we didn't have anything better, but the original screens were truly awful even for their era.

I was an original GBA owner and yeah, shipping such a muddy, non-backlit screen was a baffling decision.

Pretty sure the 3DS outsold the 2DS...

At least by Dec. 2018 the 2DS/New 2DS made up about 20% of 3DS family sales.

I'm sorry that you're stereoblind.

The 3DS is one of the coolest consoles ever made. If Nintendo made a "Super 3DS" that had the same clam-shell form factor as the new 3DS but updated internals and 720p screen(s) I would definitely buy it.

I think we could unfortunately be seeing the end of quirky consoles. The move seems to be towards standardizing everything so instead of building 5 games for 5 consoles, you build 1 game that's 5 times as good and can just hit build for each different platform.

The DS era was super fun and experimental, but most of the games were simplistic or they were first party. I think that market has largely been eaten up by mobile phones these days as well.

Which is a shame, because mobile phones have terribly imprecise inputs that limit what kinds of games make sense on them.

I was able to plug in a cheap USB SNES controller into Android and play with it quite painlessly.

Can still Bluetooh pair a mouse or keyboard or gamepad just like you would a console or PC though.

The point is that developers will target the median user, who won’t be doing any of those things.

Im some ways it has but also the mobile market is primarily hyper casual which is a pretty different market from the DS.

> largely been eaten up by mobile phones these days

In the beginning of the pandemic, when I was stuck alone at home with not much to do, I picked up a couple original DS Lite consoles for cheap and a "New Nintendo 3DS XL" (confusing name for a console :p) for a good price as well. My intention was originally to try to make homebrew for the consoles. In the end I didn't get around to the homebrew stuff but I did play quite a few different games. Thanks in part due to the fact that in a nearby city someone had listed a bunch of DS and a few 3DS cartridges that they were straight up giving away. So with those along with the ones that I got with the consoles, I had like 15 to 20 different games for the consoles or thereabouts.

The majority of the play time for me was with the New 3DS XL, as it fit my hands and vision better than the small DS consoles.

There were several games that I enjoyed quite a lot.

And to me, I still think mobile phones don't quite live up to it for a few reasons.

I mean, yeah playing GTA III on the iPhone 14 Pro is a nice experience. I've completed GTA III start to finish both on iPhone 14 Pro, as well as on previous iPhone models in the past.

But in general I don't like playing games with touch screen controls as much as playing with physical buttons. And even though there exists bluetooth controllers you can pair with an iPhone, I had a terrible unusable experience with a tried that.

There are some other mobile games that are super nice, like for example Monument Valley.

But there is also a lot of ad-ridden garbage on mobile.

So my preference would for the most part still be to play more games on the New 3DS XL, rather than to play more games on mobile.

But ideally I want to buy something like one of these, and play emulated games:

- https://anbernic.com/products/rg353v-rg353vs?variant=4335654...

- https://www.gpd.hk/gpdwin4

- https://store.ayaneo.com/goods/7849577742581

But I am still a bit undecided on which one of these to actually buy.

All I know is that I want something that

1. Runs linux (which one of them does, one of them does not mention, and one of them has in the works)

2. Emulates a bunch of different consoles

3. Comfortable to hold and use

4. Not too heavy

5. Has acceptable battery life between charging

I use Microsoft's app to stream my Xbox Series S to an iPad Air 5. I use the OEM Series S controller paired to the iPad.

Connected to my headless Xbox Series S are only the CAT6 and AC cables.

I think my mesh network is only Wifi 5, too. But it's also playable over 5G when I'm out, and that says a lot because my home connection is run-of-the-mill rural DOCSIS cable internet.

Sorry that you had a bad experience. Also I am a huge fan of dedicated appliances for particular classes of applications if you could not tell.

Sure, the same iPad Air 5 I'm using has the fancy M1 that can supposedly play games but...where are the games?

Like you said, they're not porting the games to iOS because touchscreen. Otoh, they could (and do!) require you need a controller, but then Apple would have to admit you need a third party peripheral -- which might actually zombify Steve Jobs from his slumber.

But they'll happily push a GTA port with the interface grossly adapted to the touch screen.

So it's a marketing thing: Apple is not going to be 'seen with' Microsoft, but they'll let Microsoft publish an official streaming client in their store without much fanfare. That app requires a (presumably Xbox-Microsoft-propriety-licensed) controller paired. Then I get to play top-tier games on my iPad, while Apple pretends I wouldn't ever want to do this anyway unless it was via the touch screen. Everybody wins!

One more thought: consider the battery fuel trade-off between A) running locally B) streaming ... Consider that ChromeOS can do that Xbox stream thing too, and the battery life is about 10 hours on the cheapest book (terrible 720p screen) I could buy...all despite running as an 'android emulated app' (whatever that actually means in the streaming clients particular context, they could have shipped intel native binaries anyway.) I get maybe 5-8 hours on the iPad (which has a nice screen remember), but it's not 10 hours.

...

Anyway, my point in sharing all of this, was to illustrate why I believe advanced mobile consoles like the 3DS are going away, despite the (still accelerating) growth of mobile processing power: the future is cloud gaming, so your hand held device just needs to be an acceptable thin-client which optimizes on the appropriate things (battery life, screen quality, can I drop it on asphalt, does it easily pair controllers....)

After having the Switch and then bringing the 3DS on a trip recently.... I really miss the 3DS/Vita-size devices. I know there are emulators for things but there's something about games made for small screens and those form factors that are near perfect.

The PSP and Vita were already steps towards the Switch in a sense ("powerful handheld" meaning suddenly PS2-level games were available portably), and the Switch kind of pushing the limits of what people accept as portable devices means that there's almost no market pressure to go back to a small thing. But when you hold a 3DS and realize how easy it is on the move, it makes me wistful.

I would mention the Game Boy Micro as well but that thing is not meant for anyone over the age of 30.

Another thing is the battery life. For certain games my switch is only good for about 3.5 hours. My DS lite on the other hand has like a 20 hour battery life or something ridiculous.

Ha, the DS Lite battery is incredible. I can forget about it for 5 years, and when i power it on out of curiosity it still has the same charge, how is this possible :p

> I would mention the Game Boy Micro as well but that thing is not meant for anyone over the age of 30

I love the GB Micro. I have better and more comfortable ways to play GBA games, but there’s just something so cool about it. It’s a shame those plastic screen lenses are so soft, it took me ages to find one in good condition and they cost an absolute fortune these days.

I've been using a Razor Kishi with my phone to achieve this effect; it folds up nicely when not in use so effectively has the same travel footprint and I'll always need my phone anyway.

I still miss that immediacy of instant pause/resume by closing the clamshell though.

Switch Lite is almost Vita sized. It would be nice if Nintendo made a Switch Micro that was a smidge smaller but considering the Lite already has issues with the screen being too small an even smaller device may be out of the question.

Honestly hope someone else does a dual screen clamshell design. Imagine a indie clamshell console (kinda of like the Playdate) I'd make so many games for that. Someone needs to get on making that hardware real.

I don’t understand the 3d gimmick. I always turned it off because it just made the image fuzzy

The first generation was terrible. The 3D in the "new" 3DS line was vastly, vastly improved through the addition of eye tracking. I went from keeping it permanently off to permanently on with the swap between generations.

It worked well for me. It was like looking through a window into another world. I like it much better than the helmets that block out your senses.

They should really try this concept again with a more powerful system and higher resolution screens.

Agreed, and more research and user testing for everybody. It seems like some types straight-up can't appreciate it due to their physical characteristics.

I think most people left it off but I loved it, even on the original model (though the New models were of course infinitely better). It was like playing a little diorama (especially for games that leaned into that like the port of Captain Toad)

Similar for me - anything but the lowest setting was headache-inducing, and the lowest setting usually just made it fuzzy. But only in games, the test screens in the settings worked fine.

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