Good night sweet prince, and may flocks of StreetPass Miis sing thee to thy rest.
Nintendo's last handheld-only platform has ended production after almost a decade.
A notice was posted on the Japanese-language Nintendo 3DS webpage today (available here) which roughly translates to "Production of the main body of the Nintendo 3DS series has been discontinued." This means the 2011-released handheld will no longer be produced, though online play will continue to be available and the eShop will remain for game purchases.
The 3DS family was the last to feature a split in release dates between Japan and the rest of the world, releasing in Japan on February 26, 2011 and in the rest of the world on March 27 of the same year. The last figures for its hardware and software shipments, as of June 30, were 75.87m units of hardware shipped and 384.07m units of software.
Oh man, the 3DS was a great system and I STILL miss Street Pass so much! T-T
That said, discontinuing this system means that Nintendo has no offerings at sub $199 price points. I'm curious, is it no longer tenable to run a business for dedicated video game devices (even older ones) at $150 or $100, or does Nintendo think they can bring down the price on the Switch Lite another $50 to address this segment?