In the July 2017 lead-up to the release of the New Nintendo 2DS XL, Nintendo confirmed that production on the standard-sized New Nintendo 3DS in Japan had ended. Invitations to the events were offered first to Club Nintendo members, then later to members of the public via an online registration form.

The system was released in Japan on October 11, 2014, in Australia and New Zealand on November 21, 2014, [9] [10] on January 6, 2015 in Europe in a special Club Nintendo-exclusive "Ambassador Edition", and at retail in Europe on February 13, 2015.

On February 16, 2012, following the debut of Hulu on the Wii, Nintendo reiterated the announcement this time claiming it would be available on the 3DS sometime in 2012. He's currently featured on Giant Bomb's Giant Beastcast podcast and has an unhealthy obsession with ice hockey and pinball. On April 13, 2015, Unity Technologies announced that the Unity engine would support New Nintendo 3DS.

We don't claim to understand the mysterious ways in which Nintendo operates, we just marvel at the madness and give you a practical take on how it all shakes out. It was originally launched on Wii U and was launched on the Nintendo 3DS on December 11, 2013, via a firmware update. In August 2016, a Super Mario 3D Land New 3DS bundle with two faceplates was released in North America as an exclusive to Target and Walmart. The Internet Browser's filter function was also no longer able to be turned off for Japanese 3DS devices after this date.

On September 30, 2013, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata announced that the Nintendo 3DS had sold more than 5 million units in Japan during the year of 2013. The touchscreen can be interacted with either the user's finger or a stylus bundled with the handheld. Some AR cards are also compatible with other Nintendo 3DS games including Nintendogs + Cats, Kid Icarus: Uprising, Pokédex 3D Pro, Freakyforms: Your Creations, Alive! Nintendo has noted this and included a secondary control pad here which, whilst not in the traditional control stick design, offers all the control of one.

In July 2017, production of the New Nintendo 3DS had ended in Europe and Japan leaving the New Nintendo 3DS XL and then-recently released New Nintendo 2DS XL as the only 3DS models still in production worldwide. The Virtual Console service allows Nintendo 3DS owners to download and play games originally released for the Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Gear, Nintendo Entertainment System, and exclusively for the New Nintendo 3DS models, Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The first game revealed was Kid Icarus: Uprising, and several other titles from third parties were also announced, including Square Enix with Kingdom Hearts 3D, Konami with Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D, Ubisoft with Assassin's Creed: Lost Legacy, and Capcom with Resident Evil: Revelations and Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition.

There are some games that the original 3DS, 3DS XL, and 2DS cannot play, but none of these are Pokémon games. Some of the changes are actually quite subtle, but they all have a largely positive impact on the user experience. On the Nintendo 3DS XL, this method yields a viewing size for DS games similar to their native sizes (due to the larger screen size of the XL), unlike on the original 3DS models, where the games appear to be shrunk. Nintendo 3DS was sold in the Chinese market under the iQue name, a collaboration of Nintendo and Wei Yen, was known as the iQue 3DS XL.

The biggest change is the addition of a second analog stick on the right hand side of the console: a small nub absent on earlier devices unless you owned the CirclePad Pro peripheral. StreetPass Mii Plaza is a StreetPass application which comes pre-installed on every Nintendo 3DS system, while Nintendo Zone Viewer is a built-in application that detects and makes use of certified SpotPass hotspots.Beyond the substantially improved 3D capability, the New 3DS features a number of other hardware changes. Swapnote (known as Nintendo Letter Box in Europe and Australia) is a messaging application for the Nintendo 3DS.