About The Nintendo 3DS Handheld

The 3DS is a handheld system created and released by Nintendo in 2010 and it is the successor to the Nintendo DS. It was released in the 8th generation of video game consoles and has backwards compatibility with the Nintendo DS. The 3DS can display games in 3D at various different levels by increasing the device’s 3D settings.

The system didn’t release as a resounding success and at first actually was a bit of a flop commercially. Less than 6 months into its release, Nintendo decided to reduce the price from $249.99 all the way down to $169.99 due to low sales numbers. Nintendo even offered 10 free Nintendo Entertainment System games and 10 free Game Boy Advance games from the eShop if you bought the system at its original price.

Shortly after the price reduction, sales of the handheld began to pick up and it went on to become one of Nintendo’s best selling handheld systems within its first 2 years. As of 2022, it was sold nearly 76 million times.

It also introduced StreetPass, which allowed multiple systems to communicate between each other while in close proximity, sharing the handheld’s Mii avatar in the StreetPass Mii Plaza app. When new system data was received and the 3DS was in sleep mode, an LED notification would turn and remain green, notifying the owner of the system until it was woken from sleep mode.

StreetPass allowed players to exchange software content from certain games that they played. 3DS systems could exchange this game data with other systems nearby while in sleep mode for mutual games that both systems shared.

The StreetPass Mii Plaza was a built in 3DS app that was the main app used for StreePass activity. Players could set up their Miis to appear on other 3DS systems that were nearby. The app had minigames that could be played by as well.

The 3DS also was home to SpotPass, a background connectivity system that would automatically find wireless hotspots nearby, sending and receiving background data.

How To Emulate The 3DS

The best 3DS emulator is without a doubt Citra. Citra is an open source 3DS emulator that lets gamers play their favorite 3DS ROMs on Windows PC, macOS, Linux, and Android devices.

To run it well on PC, users need to have a device that is 64-bit along with at least an OpenGL 3.3 graphics card installed on their machines.

Citrac can emulate the dual screens of a 3DS device, even allowing gamers to adjust them depending on gameplay. Do keep in mind though that emulating both screens uses more resources.

The handheld also is famous for being used to emulate other systems and for being homebrewed to run 3rd party apps. Check out this article for a guide on how to homebrew the 3DS.

In addition to the standalone Citra emulator, Citra can also be used with the emulation frontend RetroArch.

Check out this guide to learn how to setup the RetroArch Citra 3DS core.