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QuantumNomad_ • today at 8:13 AM • 2 replies • view on HN

> Nintendo 3DS is another great space to watch

Back in 2020 while the Covid-19 pandemic was on-going and we were all told to stay home as much as possible, I bought a New Nintendo 3DS XL (terrible name making “New” part of the product name btw) second hand for about $100 with some games included. I also picked up some additional games for it second hand as well. I even got a bunch of games that one person was giving away for free.

After enjoying the 3DS XL for a couple of months I eventually sold it to someone else.

I was thinking recently that it would be nice to have a 3DS XL again (I’ve also tried DS Lite during the same time that I bought the 3DS XL, but only the 3DS XL is comfortable to use for the size of my hands).

In my country the amount of money people want for a 3DS XL is much higher now than what it was in 2020. People want $300 and up now for their 3DS XL, even without games included and even if the condition of the console is very worn. The few times that something even moderately decently priced shows up it will most likely get picked up very quickly by someone else that wants to just buy it and then sell it for more.


Replies

rustyhancock • today at 9:56 AM

> terrible name making “New” part of the product name btw

It's a sign that Nintendo retains it's Japan first philosophy in many areas. But also the flexibility multiple alphabets give.

In Japan it is called "New ニンテンドー 3DS". Not 新しい (which means new) ニンテンドー 3DS.

Writing the New in English makes it clear to Japanese people it's part of the name, incidentally they write the Nintendo on katakana marks it apart from how it might be written in Japanese if it were the name which would be in kanji 任天堂 (usually termed leave luck to the heavens). If they wanted not to use kanji and keep the link to the name Nintendo then they'd use the hiragana にんてんどう. But katakana feels more techy and is clearly apart from the Japanese word and name Nintendo.

Japan, in general, does the English word borrowed back into English often.

Pack became パック (pakku) and then was returned to English as pak for game/memory pak etc. they did this to avoid using the word cartridge and cassette which is what they'd borrowed for the name of game carts.

Gigachad • today at 8:37 AM

I have a non “new” 3DS XL which ive had since 2013 but I never really played it much back in the day. I’d been increasingly bothered by how large the steamdeck is making it difficult to travel with so I pulled the 3DS out.

Now many years later with how easy it is to hack them I’m having a lot more fun with my 3DS than I did back in the day.

The “new” model is a lot more desirable though since with homebrew you can unlock the extra performance in some games and fix fps drops.