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Nintendo announces end of repair support for 2DS, New 3DS, and New 3DS LL systems

Casey Baseel Feb 14, 2024
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No new repair parts to be stocked for one 2-D handheld and two 3-D ones.

Nintendo has earned a reputation for god-tier customer service regarding hardware repairs, but that doesn’t mean the company can go on supporting units that have graduated to retro-gaming status indefinitely. The last few years have brought a series of discontinuations of online functionality and repair services for past-gen Nintendo products, and now that’s happening once again to a trio of handheld systems.

On Monday, Nintendo of Japan announced that the period of time for which it is legally required to stock repair parts for the Nintendo 2DS, New Nintendo 3DS, and New Nintendo 3DS LL has passed. Now free of such obligations, the company has decided that once its current stock of warehoused repair parts is used up, it will no longer be offering repair service to owners of those three systems, which were initially released in 2013 (2DS) and 2014 (New 3DS and New 3DS LL).

▼ The affected systems and their model numbers

Given the age of the systems, it’s understandable that the company feels ready to move on entirely from them, now that it’s legally allowed to do so. The discontinuation of support for Nintendo hardware always comes with a little extra sting, though, since Nintendo, as a software publisher, isn’t nearly as proactive in making its classic titles available for play or purchase on its current-gen successor hardware. Even for other publishers’ 2DS/New 3DS game catalogs, handheld games have historically been less likely to see modern re-releases, and the 3DS’ 3-D visuals may make publishers even less enthusiastic about porting them to modern consoles that lack that marque effect.

In other words, there’s a greater-than-normal risk of games being lost to the sands of time without a working 2DS, New 3DS, or New 3DS LL to play them on, and while the systems’ current fanbases may not be significantly large, they are passionate and vocal enough to respond to Nintendo of Japan’s Twitter announcement of the end of repair service with comments such as:

“Farewell, our youth.”
“I still play with both my 2DS and 3DS.”
“I use mine all the time.”
“End of an era.”
“And so repairs come to an end for the New 3DS too. Gotta say, this makes me sort of sad.”
“So sad…I was just playing Dragon Quest on my DS today.”
“I love my 3DS. I always have it in arm’s reach, and I’ll probably be buried with it.”
“Mine has never broken or given me any mechanical trouble, not even once.”

That last comment alludes to something that softens the blow a little, in that since Nintendo tends to make petty sturdy hardware, fans whose 2DS/New 3DS/New 3DS LL still works are unlikely to have it fall apart in their hands anytime soon. There’s also a thin silver lining to the news in that Nintendo says that the repair service for the New Nintendo 2DS LL is not part of this new batch of moratoriums.

Still, if your hardware could use a few fixes here or there, you’ll probably want to send it in for repairs ASAP. Nintendo hasn’t made any public estimate on how long the current stock of repair parts will last, and while Nintendo of America doesn’t appear to have put out a similar moratorium as of this writing, it’s a safe bet that overseas divisions of the company won’t be offering repairs for much longer than the home-market Japanese one.

Source: Nintendo via Otakomu, Twitter/@nintendo_cs
Images: Nintendo
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