Nintendo 3DS

A turquoise Nintendo 3DS. The 3D switch can be seen on the right side of the top screen.

The Nintendo 3DS, commonly referred to as the 3DS, is a handheld video game system developed by Japanese video game company Nintendo and released on March 27th, 2011. The defining feature of the system is its ability to display images in 3D without the use of 3D glasses. It is the successor to the Nintendo DS, and compatible with all DS games. As of December 2023, 75.94 million 3DS hardware units have been sold. The system has been discontinued.

The system consists of two screens that can be folded to put the system to sleep or make the system more portable; the bottom screen is a touch screen. Buttons for controlling the system surround the bottom screen, including a joystick and a four-way directional pad. New to the 3DS is a home button which allows players to return to the system's home screen to select a different software. 3D can be turned on, off, and adjusted with a slider on the right side of the top screen. The 3DS has cameras on each side of its top screen. These cameras combined with the 3D capabilities allow the 3DS to perform Augmented reality (AR) functions.

A diagram illustrating how players can use StreetPass to connect to other people they pass by

The 3DS includes software such as a camera app, recording software, an online shop, an activity log, and StreetPass. With StreetPass, if people passed each other with 3DS systems in sleep mode, the systems would tag each other and send each other data. Players could open the StreetPass application to play games with the characters of the people they pass. Additional Streetpass games were available for purchase.

The 3DS online shop closed on March 27, 2023. Players are still able to download software already purchased software, but cannot purchase new games or add funds to their account. Almost all 3DS online services will end on April 8th, 2024, aside from a few Pokémon applications that allow users to transfer Pokémon between game systems.