Root by means of your drawers, and examine that cardboard field within the attic: 3DS costs are going by means of the roof. As noticed by X account Pirat_Nation, the outdated Nintendo handheld is now promoting secondhand for as a lot as or greater than they did at launch.
The 3DS, initially launched in 2010, was formally discontinued in 2020. A successor to the massively profitable Nintendo DS, it matched its predecessor’s two-screen clamshell design, however this time with a stereoscopic 3D display screen on the highest half that didn’t require carrying magic glasses. It was, regardless of the way you may keep in mind issues, a phenomenal success, promoting a wild 75.94 million models throughout its ten years and numerous incarnations. But, regardless of this obvious ubiquity, demand for the gadgets is at present skyrocketing such {that a} used 3DS XL—which you possibly can have picked up a yr in the past for underneath $100—can proper now fetch you upward of $250.
3DS Costs Are Spiking
This Decade-Previous Nintendo Handheld Is Now Value Nearly as A lot as a Change 2
New 3DS XL fashions are sometimes promoting for $200 to $350 used.
Costs are more likely to hold climbing. pic.twitter.com/s0SZJecvzM
— Pirat_Nation 🔴 (@Pirat_Nation) December 29, 2025
Given the bigger 3DS XL price $200 on launch (which itself was $50 cheaper than the unique 3DS at launch), this can be a huge value. It goes even larger in case you’re searching for the so-called New Nintendo 3DS XL, the 2014 model of the hand held that added a brand new C-Stick and a greater CPU, which you’ll battle to select up in good situation underneath $280. (If you happen to scour eBay you may at first declare, “This fool so-called ‘journalist’ has all of it incorrect!” till you look a bit nearer and spot the decrease costs shall be for Japanese-only LL fashions, or listings that finally reveal particulars about broken LCD screens and the like.) It’s not solely clear what’s driving this new curiosity; there hasn’t been a major bounce in piracy strategies since customized firmware outmoded the necessity for flashcarts a couple of years again. Nonetheless, the 3DS stays an superb gaming machine.
Whereas the 3D impact was by no means one thing that basically labored for me (with imperfect eyesight, it simply appeared blurry and unconvincing, and I’d inevitably simply swap the impact off in each new recreation), it’s basically a quicker, greater, and higher Nintendo DS (one of the best console ever made, clearly), and is backwards suitable with the great archive of DS video games that preceded it. My 3DS XL sits proudly on the cabinets behind me, safe within the information that I’ll by no means promote it (nicely, until costs spike an terrible lot extra), a duplicate of Pokémon Extremely Moon within the cart slot as nature supposed. However it’s tempting!
