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Comment by optimuspaul | Hacker News Reader

seriously?! I just bought one now after putting it off for years

Personally I wouldn't be mad, the homebrew and hacking community will probably stay strong for years. I'd be surprised if you bought it think you'd be playing brand new games?

Right? There is a tremendous game library on the 3Ds, with several well known titles being exclusive to the console. Thousands of hours of gameplay on native games, let alone the emulated ones.

You must have had a reason to get it though, i.e. specific titles.

As long as you can get them all for decent prices, I don't think there's much to regret, because if they're using any of the 3DS exclusive capabilities, you're not going to be able to reproduce the experience on any other console anyways.

There are cartridges which allow you to load games onto a micro SD card. They can be used to load homebrew games or roms obtained from less than legal means.

I had one for the original DS and obtained ROMs for the cartridges that I owned. It was convenient to have them all in one place when traveling without having to bring a bunch of cartridges with me.

Even better, if you load custom firmware[1] on it, you don't need the special cartridge at all, and you can dump your game cartridges right to the system's SD card (this only works for GameBoy Advance and 3DS games, but not original DS games). If you buy digital games from the eShop, this also gives you an effective way to back them up, including save files.

[1]: https://3ds.hacks.guide/

It works for DS games also. I had a few on mine.

That's true, but it requires TwilightMenu++[1] and is not as straightforward as the usual method for 3DS and GBA games. Also, I don't think DS games will show up on the home screen like 3DS and GBA games do.

[1]: https://www.cfwaifu.com/twilight-menu-3ds/

I have one from the release year and still use it so you might get ten years out of it, too. The game selection/portability/travelworthiness is hard to top.

I still use my DS Lite along with my 3DS XL: Nintendo really builds things to last, ime. Looking forward to the release of the retro Game And Watch Mario Bros in November.

Did you really buy it with an expectation of a steady stream of new titles?

I've been meaning to get one forever too and now I go looking and they're quite difficult to find (new, retail). I guess Nintendo hasn't shipped any new stock in some time.

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