Has Nintendo discontinued the original 3DS?

Looks like the days of the original 3DS and its fatter cousin who gave up on a new year’s resolution within the first week, are numbered.

According to evidence put together by Destructoid, it looks like the vanilla edition of the 3DS is starting to become a rare specimen as Nintendo winds down production on that specific unit in lieu of the newer, more 3Dier model that is on the way. According to the site, stock is becoming increasingly hard to find in the UK and the US of A, and one peripheral manufacturer has stated that the handheld is no longer in production.

Of course, that all ties into the fact that the 3DS and the 3DS XL have been completely discontinued already in Japan, as Nintendo looks to expand the adoption of the new hardware into the west. Major retailers in the states such as Target, Walmart, Best Buy and GameStop claim that new stock of those units are but a distant memory, with the UK’s GAME retail chain showing similar results.

Remember, the new 3DS will be sporting some new hardware for upcoming games. Games will only run on those systems, resulting in some users having to either adopt the new system or find themselves left out in the cold. In medicinal terms, this is also known as the iPhone Effect, which rolls around once a year and claims many millions of lives according to my completely unverified and dodgy research.

I plan to get one of those new consoles for myself personally. And not just because my original 3DS is starting to sport chipped paint on the D-pad. I just need another Pokémon machine, is all. Oh jeez, I have a problem.

Last Updated: January 6, 2015