this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
14 points (100.0% liked)
RetroGaming
21459 readers
296 users here now
Vintage gaming community.
Rules:
- Be kind.
- No spam or soliciting for money.
- No racism or other bigotry allowed.
- Obviously nothing illegal.
If you see these please report them.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Thanks. I kind of want the option to buy the original carts later and thought the gba would be better since it plays gameboy games.
Then the 3ds should handle all the ds stuff.
I figured this way I could get maximum compatibility and have the option of buying original game carts down the line.
Then you’ll definitely want an DS or DS Lite and the R4 since you can backup your cart and make your own ROM with it.
The GBxCart is also another good value backup tool.
3DS and DS games are best backed up on a modded 3DS
I’m not sure if you will know the answer to this, but in my region 2ds, 3ds xl are at least $200 but the original 3ds is just like $90.
Is there something about the original that makes it so much cheaper? I only plan to use it for pokemon. I have a steamdeck for everything else. It’s just the dual screens are kind of important for those titles.
I made a video a while ago going over the DS line if you want to watch my opinion: https://youtu.be/LAzUY1L0yOE
If you want to go into the nitty gritty 3DBrew has a wiki for it: https://3dbrew.org/wiki/Hardware
However to directly answer your question. 3DS, 2DS and 3DS XL do have minor differences between the versions, at their core are the same machines with an ARM 9 Processor.
3DS was the original release, and while it's hardware hasn't aged well. The system sold well enough.
2DS was a budget friendly option, going as low as $99 USD with game bundles. The system only had a single display pretending to be a dual screen.
3DS XL was for those who wanted a bigger screen. Bigger didn't mean more pixels. Just physically larger.
The New Nintendo 3DS line N3DS, N3DSXL, and N2DSXL were the ones with hardware upgrades and are worth a pretty penny. If you were looking to emulate more than what Nintendo offered this is the one to get.
However if you want more details I'd watch some videos going over them. It's hard to understand their differences without seeing it.
Thanks! The video was great. Since I don’t plan to upgrade until I finish Pokemon gold, I’m going to keep an eye out for a 3dsxl. The “new” ones where I live are so expensive. You can get a switch for less 😂
But I guess what I really learned is that I’d be happy with any of the 3ds versions.
Thanks I’m going to check out the video.