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The Nintendo 3DS is celebrating its 15-year anniversary today, March 27, 2025. Below, we look back at its design philosophy and how it differs from modern-day handheld counterparts like the Switch and Steam Deck.
Portable consoles are big now. The Steam Deck and its wave of competing devices are just PCs that you can slip into a suitcase. In and of itself, this can make the Steam Deck feel like the best possible version of the portable console. If you're willing to tinker and/or emulate, you can play almost anything on it. If you've already got a massive library of games on Steam? All the better. The Nintendo Switch, which anticipated the Steam Deck's form, went bigger for its sequel. All this size and expansiveness has me longing for a truly handheld device: pocket-sized rather than merely portable. Though some op-eds opined that the 3DS was a serious departure from the minimalist design philosophy that defined the early Nintendo handheld, what has endured is its relatively narrow focus. The 3DS outlasted its own extra-dimensional gimmick and in the process became one of the very best ways to play.
Strangely enough, the portable shift towards maximalism may have started with the 3DS. The original Game Boy, though large and cumbersome in its own right, was made cheaply. Designer Gunpei Yokai advocated for using mature technology that could be obtained easily. The philosophy paid off. The Game Boy, fueled with the lean efficiency of Tetris, was a cascading success. Over two decades later, the 3DS took a new approach. It was not exactly cutting edge, but it boasted a high-tech gimmick of its own (3D effects without glasses) and bright, colorful graphics in those dimensions. It had augmented-reality features and wireless, cross-device communication. Some of the early titles, like Resident Evil: The Mercenaries and Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D, boasted console-quality gaming on the go. But its competition was the Vita, an even larger and more maximalist portable console (which, in a funny twist of fate, became better for playing visual novels and old JRPGs than any big-budget Sony games). The 3DS was cheaper and appealed to a significantly broader audience. It helped a lot that it was a successor to the already resoundingly popular DS.
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Portable consoles are big now. The Steam Deck and its wave of competing devices are just PCs that you can slip into a suitcase. In and of itself, this can make the Steam Deck feel like the best possible version of the portable console. If you're willing to tinker and/or emulate, you can play almost anything on it. If you've already got a massive library of games on Steam? All the better. The Nintendo Switch, which anticipated the Steam Deck's form, went bigger for its sequel. All this size and expansiveness has me longing for a truly handheld device: pocket-sized rather than merely portable. Though some op-eds opined that the 3DS was a serious departure from the minimalist design philosophy that defined the early Nintendo handheld, what has endured is its relatively narrow focus. The 3DS outlasted its own extra-dimensional gimmick and in the process became one of the very best ways to play.
Strangely enough, the portable shift towards maximalism may have started with the 3DS. The original Game Boy, though large and cumbersome in its own right, was made cheaply. Designer Gunpei Yokai advocated for using mature technology that could be obtained easily. The philosophy paid off. The Game Boy, fueled with the lean efficiency of Tetris, was a cascading success. Over two decades later, the 3DS took a new approach. It was not exactly cutting edge, but it boasted a high-tech gimmick of its own (3D effects without glasses) and bright, colorful graphics in those dimensions. It had augmented-reality features and wireless, cross-device communication. Some of the early titles, like Resident Evil: The Mercenaries and Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D, boasted console-quality gaming on the go. But its competition was the Vita, an even larger and more maximalist portable console (which, in a funny twist of fate, became better for playing visual novels and old JRPGs than any big-budget Sony games). The 3DS was cheaper and appealed to a significantly broader audience. It helped a lot that it was a successor to the already resoundingly popular DS.
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