With the Nintendo Switch hogging the limelight for Nintendo, helping it rise back to dominance in this console generation, one continues to wonder about the fate of the Nintendo 3DS. The handheld platform has had over 1,000 games release at this point but with the Switch providing an even more powerful portable solution, does the 3DS really have a future?

Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime says it does – the company actually has some new 3DS games to announce in the coming months. Speaking to IGN, Fils-Aime stated that, “We’re going to continue [focusing on the 3DS], we’re going to continue to have some new games on that platform. We’re going to announce [them], and we will over the next number of months, but it’s going to continue to be a vibrant piece of our overall business, certainly here in the Americas.”

What about Mario Kart Tour, the mobile version of the popular kart racer that was announced earlier this year? It was notably absent from E3 2018 but as per Fils-Aime, that wasn’t the right place to talk about it.

“Depending on the game, E3 could or could not be a place to shed light on mobile activity. In the case of Mario Kart Tour, we made the decision that there’s going to be another opportunity to shed more light on that app, especially shedding light when it’s closer to its launch. We continue to be on track to launch it in this current fiscal year for Nintendo.”

Nintendo has seen some very strong success in the mobile market thanks to titles like Fire Emblem Heroes and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp. This combined with the Mario Kart IP more or less means another strong mobile IP but we’ll have to wait for more details on the release date.

It may have taken roughly seven years but the Nintendo 3DS has achieved another sales milestone in Japan. As per Media Create’s hardware charts, the 3DS range of handheld devices has crossed over 24 million sales in the region since the original 3DS launched on February 26th 2011.

The grand total of 24,004,320 units consists of 4,731,954 New Nintendo 3DS XL units; 510,883 units of the Nintendo 2DS; and 662,159 units of the New Nintendo 2DS XL. If nothing else, this sales total indicates that Japan still enjoys the portability and affordable nature of the device. So despite the Nintendo Switch selling like hot cakes, it may not phase out the 3DS anytime soon.

Thankfully, Nintendo has confirmed that it will continue supporting the handheld, keeping it as an affordable option for consumers. It also confirmed newer upcoming releases like Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux, Wario Ware Gold and Luigi’s Mansion for this year.

The 3DS will never die, because Nintendo will keep finding ways of selling us the system over and over again, even when it’s nearing its seventh birthday. Take this, for instance- Nintendo has announced that the amazingly cute Pikachu themed New 2DS XL will be launching in North America later this month, on January 26.

The Pikachu model will cost $160; it doesn’t come with anything included, but you get a gloriously cute Pikachu themed DS, and really, what else could you want for yourself? It’s going to be real hard to stop myself from getting one of these…

If you want to play some Pokemon on your new Pikachu 2DS, Pokemon Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon just came out, and Detective Pikachu will be launching on March. Plus, of course, there’s a dozen Pokemon games available on the system already, so you’ll have no shortage of catching them all stuff on the system.

Almost six and a half years after its release, the Nintendo 3DS continues trucking on, in the face of all common wisdom and rhetoric that would have you believe that the market for a dedicated gaming handheld no longer exists, and the 3DS will be dying any minute now. Not only does it continue to subsist, however, it is thriving– it’s doing great on the hardware sales and software front, with a brand new model having just released, and many major games in the pipeline.

And to keep the momentum going, Nintendo has announced a new bundle for the Nintendo 2DS, the cheapest, budget priced model- starting August 25, you can get a Nintendo 2DS, with a copy of New Super Mario Bros. 2, for just $80. Given that New Super Mario Bros. 2 isn’t half bad, and that the 3DS library is remarkably strong at this point, that is a hell of a deal.

As for what you can look forward to on the 3DS- major games still in the pipeline for the system include Metroid: Samus Returns, Pokemon UltraSun/UltraMoon, Fire Emblem Warriors, Yokai Watch, Monster Hunter Stories, Etrian Odyssey 5, Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, and Radiant Historia, among others. It’ll be around for a while, guys.

Following The NPD Group’s August 2016 report on the best selling games in the United States, Nintendo has released information on sales for its hardware and games in the same period.

Nintendo 2DS sales are up by over 500 percent when compared to the same month last year which is a result of a price cut in May. There’s also plenty of hype about Pokemon with both the recent release of Pokemon Go and Pokemon Sun and Moon out in November.

Meanwhile, 3DS sales are up by 83 percent though this doesn’t include sales of the New Galaxy Style New Nintendo 3DS XL which went on sale after sales for August 2016 were recorded. First party software sales on the 3DS increased by 57 percent and it also seems that Wii U game sales increased by 30 percent. Nintendo didn’t reveal any new hardware numbers though.

The Nintendo NX, meanwhile, is still slated to release in March 2017 with a reveal possibly coming next month according to rumours.

The Nintendo 2DS, the 3D-less entry level budget model of the Nintendo 3DS line, will see its price officially dropped to just $99 come this month end. This will make it the cheapest handheld on the market, as well as the cheapest current generation system, and will also give players access to one of the best libraries on the market for a steal of a price.

The Nintendo 2DS is essentially just a Nintendo 3DS, but without the 3DS; it has all other functionality that the 3DS line has, and has full compatibility with the entirety of the DS, DSi, and 3DS library- meaning newcomers to the ecosystem are in for a hell of a treat.

“The new lower-priced hardware combined with the strong lineup of new games launching this year and arguably the best library of games in this generation makes it a great time to be a Nintendo fan,” Nintendo marketing executive Scott Moffitt said in a statement.

The Nintendo 2DS will come with a copy of Mario Kart 7, the 3DS incarnation of Nintendo’s popular racing game series, bundled.

Nintendo of America has come forth and tried to explain, yet again, why the smaller, regular sized New Nintendo 3DS did not release in North America (presently, only the New Nintendo 3DS XL is available in the region, completely phasing out older XL models; the original Nintendo 3DS model, and Nintendo 2DS, however, are all still available in the country). And, in a response that ordinarily would have sounded sensible, it sounds like they did it to avoid brand confusion, and create distinct product tiers and categories.

“We’re a different market,” Nintendo’s Damon Baker told Nintendo Life. “And now we have clear differentiation between those three systems. Before, there was a very limited difference between the 3DS and 3DS XL: other than size. It was the same resolution, same functionality… now, there’s the 2DS, 3DS, and New 3DS XL, all of which have their own functionality and features.”

“The different price points give it a clear message for consumers,” he added. “The core audience… we weren’t going to win with them on that decision. But we had to think about expanding the user base, we had to be able to market it and make it easy to pick up for consumers.”

Which, like I said, would be a sensible response, if it weren’t for the fact that Nintendo is the king of brand confusion. They called the successor to the Wii the Wii U. The DS successor with 3D was called the 3DS, and to make it even more confusing, the 3D-less 3DS was called the 2DS. The new Super Smash Bros. games are literally called Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and Super Smash Bros. for 3DS. The new 3DS revision is called the New 3DS. Nintendo could not give less of a shit about brand confusion if it tried. So why this sudden conscientiousness about it?

Question time. How do you make a TV commercial that is part CG, part live action and make it not a horrid waste of time? Simple. You take something that fits into a real world setting and you briefly play to those strengths while not over staying your welcome before moving on to the real meat and potatoes.

Perfect example, the Pokémon Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire TV Commercial. Given that Pokémon are supposed to exist alongside humans it’s not weird to see them walking alongside some kids (I’m looking at you Sonic Boom). They even skitter into each other in a cute little moment of realism.

Then the trailer goes on to give you a brief look at the upcoming games “soaring” feature that lets you Fly on your Pokémon’s back like you’ve always wanted to before showing off a few of  the core updates like Mega-Evolution. There’s a brief platform advertisement lasting like 3 seconds and then it ends.

Did GTA ever get a band name to change its entire name just to celebrate its release? Yeah, thought not. We had earlier reported that Union J were going to change their name to Union XY. This has now happened and we have the official quotes for you below.

In all seriousness, though, ahead of Pokemon X and Y’s release this Saturday, Union J have gone ahead and changed their name to Union XY to celebrate the new Nintendo 3DS 3D (in multiple ways) Pokemon games. The original idea for this came from George Shelley who suggested it to the rest of the band. At the press conference the official Union XY logo was revealed as the Union J logo morphed into the new one.

“We’re changing our name to Union XY, it’s amazingly cool. This is something we’re so passionate about, we’ve grown up with this and it means so much to us to be able to promote it,” said George, Union J.

The official name change will happen on October 12th, the same day as Pokémon X and Pokémon Y  releases exclusively on the Nintendo 3DS line of systems. The change will be only for one day, but it’s still a pretty unprecedented cross media promotion as these things go.

Never again will the age old axiom of ‘Pokemon never changes!’ be valid. Come October 12, Pokemon changes forever. And if that trailer is indicative of anything, all those changes, a long time coming, will have been substantially for the better.

Pokemon X and Y have a bevy of new changes- from the series’ first shift to polygonal 3D graphics, to persistent online connectivity, mega evolutions, an all new Pokemon type, new types of Pokemon battles, including the visually impressive Sky battles, and the Horde battles that look like they will turn the tables on you, full trainer customization, Pokemon Aime, the new mode that allows you to manipulate Pokemon happiness, to transparency with Pokemon EVs… and now, that above trailer does a pretty good job of throwing most of these into the spotlight.

The new features look great. The games themselves look charming as all hell. The music sounds incredible (but that’s a given for Pokemon games). This is it, after nearly a decade of stagnancy, Pokemon finally moves forward. And it’s been a long time coming.

Pokemon X and Y hit the Nintendo 3DS family of systems exclusively on October 12. Stay tuned for GamingBolt’s review.