I Got a New Nintendo 3ds Xl In Gods Good year of 2024

Did you know It's surprisingly easy to....

5/22/2024

For a long while now, something me and my girlfriend have been meaning to do was to buy New 3DS XL consoles for ourselves, mainly for the fact that she missed out on the 3DS growing up, and wanted to homebrew it for all sorts of stuff. She believed it would also be fun for me to get one aswell so we can play games together and the such. She got the Pearl White console and I got the Pink+White console.

It's been doing me quite well for the few weeks I've had it at the time of writing, It's certainly nostalgic holding a hefty sized 3DS again, my childhood 3DS XL had it's hinge snap way back when, and I was stuck with the Vanilla 2DS for years, though I love that end slice of bread for it's own reasons. I'll mainly just be rambling about homebrew, games, and streetpass for this little post.

The Look

[Bad Camera Photos Imminent]

First things first... I think the New 3DS XL is such a good looking handheld, this thing is sexy. I'm especially glad
I got the Pink Variant which is a Hot pink color, previous Pink 3DS models were more of a pastel Pink. Just the shape,
the color, and the colored buttons really make this thing look fun and it pops alot.

I got my 3DS via eBay, alongside the Box (not pictured,) It didn't come in perfect condition, not that you would be able to notice from the photos, but there were some yellowed spots (since cleaned) and scratches and scuffs and the like, but it was still in otherwise good condition, I can't complain.

Also I Love using loops on things, I have a ton of Japanese phone charms and the like, so I slapped my Nana Phone Charm on it and It's just lovely (pictured right), though it admittedly feels strange that the New 3DS XL lacks 2 charm loops when every other 3DS model before had 2 loops, but like, thats something only I'd complain about lol.

I was actually half tempted to get the "Vanilla New" 3DS, due to the option of having various faceplates to mix and match with, but I wanted the bigger, juicier screen.

It's just so nice to own a console thats both nice looking and colorful, Given that current consoles and other electronics are just, white, black, or grey, a 3DS really sticks out (If you get a colored variant, that is.)

Homebrew

Now for the elephant in the room.

Frankly, I don't know why you would own a 3DS in current year without modifying it in someway, the things you can do once homebrewed feel endless.

Following the 3DS Hacks Guide I installed boot9strap and custom firmware using the SuperSkaterHax, and If you
didn't know, the sayings are true, a 3DS is Remarkably Easy to Homebrew, Took me like 10-15 minutes tops.

Once hacked, It was to the racetracks for me, Immediately installed a bunch of games I had on my (also hacked) 2DS, imported saves, installed custom themes, installed utilities, etc. There's alot to do with this system once the floodgates are open.

Oh yeah, since my 3ds was from Japan (The Pink+White variant was only released there) My 3DS was naturally, set in Japanese, I Didn't actually mind it and kept it that was for a while, I thought it was a nice change of pace considering all the game icons switched to Japanese ones rather then the US, and I could simply play games in english since CFW removes region lock and I could use a LocaleSwitcher, but I decided to perform a Region Change since navigating Streetpass games was pretty damn hard without understanding the language, and I'm sure even if that wasn't an issue, there would be something else down the line that would've made me change the region anyhow.

One of the big things thats been made for the 3DS are replacement Nintendo Network servers, if you didn't know, Nintendo shut down the official online servers last month, but the Pretendo Network aims to be a replacement, allowing services like online play and Miiverse to thrive once again..... However due to Circumstances I was unable to create an account, I stalled on creating an account out of laziness, Oh well.

Another utility I was interested in was NTR Streaming, where I can output my 3DS screens to my computer to record footage of games, 3DS capture cards require hardmodding and the kits can be hard to come by, and also pricey. NTR streaming was always iffy, but with a recent update and being on a New model, it's surprisingly really good, Will
definitely have fun with this.

Almost forgot actually, custom themes are always really nice on anything, the main source of them being from Themeplaza theres tons of well made themes there (once you sort through the low quality and "memey" ones), for practically everything. Nowadays, It's quite simple to create your own 3DS theme aswell with the program Kame Editor very easy, if time consuming, I made a Kare Kano Custom theme using this program. You can also make splash screens pretty easily, screens that show up upon booting the 3DS is something homebrew allows, the first pic on thiss page has a custom splash I made.

Streetpass

Oh, how I missed this experience.

If you don't know, Streetpass is a sort of 3DS communication system, in where by putting your console in sleep mode, its able to send and recieve data with other 3DS's in proximity. An example of data sent is in one of the pack in programs with the 3DS, Streetpass Mii Plaza, where when getting a Streetpass, that 3DS users Mii will be sent to yours and vice versa for use in Streetpass games. Many 3DS titles use this feature in different ways, like In Animal Crossing: New Leaf, where you get to see a copy of that players home.

I, and alot of people who grew up with the 3DS really enjoy this feature, it's quite hard to get them naturally nowadays, but it's always fun to go to a convention or large city with your 3DS and getting a ton of tags, seeing what they played last, and a fun little message.

Recently though, a big revelatation happened with Streepass; theres now a program that allows you to recieve
Streetpass tags over the internet, Using the homebrew program Netpass you just enter a virtual location, and you get
the tags of other people who entered that virtual location, it's super cool and charming.

The above images was my best of portraying an example of the program, it's been a long time since I got 9 streetpass tags. Netpass is a must have for any 3DS user nowadays.

Games

Right, I forgot this was a games console.

Honestly? I've just been playing a lot of Tomodachi Life, it's such a neat game to me. I just like these sorts of life simulation type games, and I also like being god and observing the little freaks I put on this island like it's an ant farm.

Have a random assortment of recent Tomodachi screenshots.

I'm half tempted to make a page about Tomodachi, maybe.

Other games I've been playing have been Pokemon Black and White, which I've been playing alongside my girlfriend, I'm super nostalgic for gen 5 and it's been so long. Been also playing alot of Mario Kart 7 (and CTGP7, a Mario Kart 7 Mod pack) and soon I'm gonna try and start playing the Persona Q games again. Really though, I just wanna try alot of the shit I didn't play when I was younger.

The 3D

Just wanna say that, I really miss the 3D functionality of the 3DS, it's so cool and It's a shame that later games dropped having a 3D functionality all together, interesting how the perception of 3D changed in the past decade. The New 3DS face tracking 3D works very well in my experience.

Should you buy a 3ds?

mmmmmmaybe.

I love this thing to bits, It also costed me like $200, so it's quite the investment if you want a New model, I'm sure the older models are alot cheaper, though I quite like the improvements that the New model has, some homebrew apps can only work on New models due to better clock speed and CPU.

Variety of factors are at play, do you like playing games in handheld? how interested are you actually in homebrew? can you blow a bunch of money on a relatively old handheld? do you actually like 3DS games? does a 3DS actually interest you?

I've always been a Nintendo kid so I'm bias to this stuff, but I can imagine these are harder to answer if you aren't.

Though, you don't have to buy a 3DS, maybe you have one lying around, catching dust, maybe give it some love again? Even If it's the og 2011 model, it'll still do ya good once hacked.

If ya do end up wanting to buy a 3DS, cool! I bought mine from a reputable eBay seller, Lucky 8 Trading. Lots of models there and free shipping.

End

Thanks for reading my ramble, the 3DS means alot to me, hopefully It might've ignited something in you aswell, whether interest or nostalgia.

Have my friend code, if you so desire, let me know If you've actually added me, so I can add ya back :).