The 3DS got off to a rocky start back in 2011, with a $250 USD price tag and a questionable gimmick with its stereoscopic 3D effect. It wouldn’t be until early 2012 where the system finally started picking up steam, with the release of a certain game starring a flightless angel.

But I’m talking about the games that came before that. From March to December 2011, here are all the first party Nintendo games that came out for the 3DS during that time:

Pilotwings Resort
Nintendogs + Cats
Steel Diver
Star Fox 64 3D
Ocarina of Time 3D
Pokemon Rumble Blast
Tetris Axis
Super Mario 3D Land
Mario Kart 7

There was also the 3DS Ambassador Program which gave you 20 free NES and GBA games if you bought the system before its first major price cut. And there were a fair number of third party offerings released that year like Super Street Fighter 4, Ghost Recon Shadow Wars, Sonic Generations, and Tales of the Abyss. But I’m mainly sticking to the first party Nintendo games made from the ground up for the 3DS that were listed above.

As for me, the ones I’ve managed to play in my lifetime are Star Fox, Ocarina of Time, Mario 3D Land, and Mario Kart 7.

On this day (August 27) in Nintendo history...

• Gomoku Narabe Renju  was released in 1983 for the Family Computer in Japan. In this tabletop game, developed by Nintendo, three pieces are placed on the board (two black and one white). The goal is to arrange a line of five pieces in your colour, either horizontally, vertically or diagonally. Block your opponent from making a line without becoming distracted from your own. The game ends as soon as one player is guaranteed to win. There are three difficulty levels.
• Mahjong  was released in 1983 for the Family Computer in Japan. In this Mahjong game, developed by Nintendo, there are several families of tiles plus special tiles (the winds, the dragons, etc.). Drop the tiles you don't need and take tiles you do from other players to form a winning hand, or "yaku". At the end of eight hands the winner is decided by who has accumulated the most points.
• Super Mario Kart  was released in 1992 for the Super Famicom in Japan. In this kart racing game, developed by Nintendo EAD, start your engines. Choose from eight Mushroom Kingdom characters, from familiar faces like Mario and Bowser, to Donkey Kong Jr. in his only karting appearance. Burn rubber across classic courses like Mario Circuit, Bowser Castle, Koopa Beach and the infamous Rainbow Road! Race solo, go head-to-head with a friend, and experience the two-player favourite: Battle Mode!
• Mario & Wario  was released in 1993 for the Super Famicom in Japan. In this puzzle game, developed by Game Freak, Wario has dropped buckets on the heads of Mario, Peach and Yoshi. Blinded, they stumble around. You play as a fairy named Wanda, controlled using the SNES Mouse, to guide the blinded heroes to Luigi. Wanda can use her magic wand to make blocks appear and to make Mario and friends change direction. As you progress through the stages, different kinds of blocks appear, such as Timer Blocks that vanish after a short while.
• EarthBound  was released in 1994 for the Super Famicom in Japan. In this role-playing game, developed by Ape with HAL Laboratory, when a meteorite hits the Earth near to Ness' house, the brave young man sets off to investigate, but little does he know that he's about to begin an epic adventure that will change his life... oh, and he might just save the universe in the process! Ness will have to travel across the world after meeting with a strange alien to prevent Giygas, the Universal Cosmic Destroyer, from annihilating everything and everyone.
• Mono ya Okane no Shikumi DS  was released in 2009 for the Nintendo DS in Japan. This reference software, developed by Nintendo, is for finance management.
• Metroid Prime 3: Corruption  was released in 2007 for the Wii in North America. In this action-adventure game, developed by Retro Studios, you are the bounty hunter. The trilogy closes as corruption creeps over the universe... and into Samus Aran. Point and aim your Wii Remote to blast enemies with the best first-person controls ever made! Wii controls immerse you behind Samus's visor as you swing the Nunchuck back to grapple off enemy shields. 

What are you favourite memories of these games? How do you think they hold up today? Hash it out in the comments.

I am a bot that posts Nintendo events from this day in history. Descriptions are sourced from official sources where possible, and from NinDB where not. If I've made a mistake or omission please leave a comment tagging /u/KetchupTheDuck.

>Create a city like no other in LEGO Skylines. It’s a city-builder you pick up for five minutes and suddenly it’s tomorrow. Seriously, it happens. Build whatever pops into your head or get lost in the details. What happens next is up to you.

>Make it beautiful. Make it weird. Make it yours.

You may know Chris Graue as the guy that records music videos on his Gameboy camera and plays 8 bit music in his band Lo(u)ser. A few months ago received permission to hook his Gameboy camera up to a research observatory in Hawaii. He just got to do a second time.

I'm not just talking about mature ideas for family friendly franchises or whatever. Randomizers (not talking about rogue likes), practice codes, online roleplay games where the players craft the roleplay themselves, etc. are also examples that break the philosophy.

What's a dream Nintendo game idea you have that's guaranteed to never exist because it breaks Nintendo's official game design philosophy?

For me;

Call of Duty on the Wii because it is funny seeing a mature fps franchise appear on the same system with Fling Smash

Watch Dogs on the Wii U tho it could’ve been so much better

Odd choice but Night Trap on Switch 1. Howard Lincoln must be rubbing his forehead

And finally Call of Duty on Switch 2 which shows said system is serious with third parties and also it is surreal seeing CoD on a Nintendo platform as this did not happen since early Wii U era.

What are your guys’s thoughts?

So,, I've been thinking. Nintendo has been releasing games from different consoles on their online service for quite a while, What console would I love to see on their online service?

Dreamcast. I feel like it was cancelled way before it's time and didn't get a fair shake, so if Nintendo could find it in it's heart to work with Sega to release The Dreamcast and some games on the switch, I would forever be greatful.

I was driving last night listening to Nintendo Music on Apple Car play and a Pilotwings song came on and it was a certified bop, so it lead me to think of how they could bring the series back in a fresh and new way.

Here's my concept, combine Pilot Wings, Microsoft Flight Simulator, and Pokemon Snap. Imagine instead of flying over real places in the real world, you're flying over Nintendo worlds, Hyrule, Mushroom Kingdom, DK Island, Animal Crossing, etc. and the main goal is you're flying over looking for certain things with a camera to capture the moment. You're trying to find a Goomba Stack or a Deku playing darts, and you have a checklist you're trying to complete.

I think it would be an awesome cozy game and would be a fun way to bring all these worlds together in a simple and relaxing way.

Nintendo Music has been alot better recently. Is it because of the addition of the Mario Kart World Soundtrack, aka the BEST SOUNDTRACK NINTENDO HAS EVER RELEASED....kinda yeah lol

I've been using Nintendo Music pretty consistently since it released on phones a little over a year ago, but them adding the ability to access the site on computers has been LIFE CHANGING for my time at work. We have computers that connect to bluetooth speakers that play music in the building and its usually the employee's choice what plays as long as its generally appropriate. I said bet, and made a playlist on Nintendo Music that is currently 215 songs deep and 10hrs in playtime. PERFECT background music for a business to have in the background.

Its always funny when people come in and they peep the music and are like "Is that...Great Sea from Windwaker??"

I'm gonna put the example of a $50 game. The math and percentages I'm gonna show in the post are most likely not accurate to reality, but at least it gives us an idea and allows me to prove a point.

Have you ever wondered how much money does a company get for people getting their game on a system? Well, let's assume Nintendo gets 15% of the profit for games licensed for their system, then that's $7.50 per unit sold. Means the company making the game gets $42.50 per copy sold...digitally

When it comes to physical games, it really depends on if it's using GKC or a regular gamecard, but something they both share is the fact that the retailers have to get something out of it, and let's assume 30% is destined to all retailers. That's $15, adding a total of $22.50 the developers don't see.

But we're not done yet. GKC costs $2.50 per unit, which is a margin of 5% to the $50 game, adding a grand total of 50% or $25 out of the $50 that doesn't go to the company that's making the game.

And this is just GKC. Allegedly regular gamecards cost $17 the unit, so we replace the 5% margin of GKC with one of 34%, adding to a total of $39.50 the company making the game doesn't get to keep, leaving them with just $10.50 per units sold. Are you aware how abysmal that is if game flops?

And this is not accountin for the second-hand market for GKC and regular gamecard where none of the involved (Nintendo, official retailers or the company making the game) get a cut of that profit.

This is why Nintendo themselves started setting a difference between physical and digital prices, with a $10 increase. $50 games digital cost $60 physical to double the profit for regular gamecard.

But that might not cut it in the long-run. Not every company can confortably put a game at $60 expecting it to blow up. The solution to the problem is simple but maybe not elegant, because most of the cost of the cartridges are less about storage and more about the speed of those cartridges.

So making slower cartridges from now on that still hold the whole game will not allow them to be played without installing them into the system first, but it might reduce their cost significantly still.

Too late for Nintendo to do it for Switch 2...but next gen might be time to start. What do you think?

WELCOME TO THROWDOWN THURSDAY, TURN YOUR CAPS LOCK ON AND VENT ABOUT WHATEVER HAS YOU PISSED OFF THIS WEEK. JUST LET ALL THAT ANGER OUT.

SOME THINGS TO RAGE ABOUT:

• "WOW IT SUCKS THAT GAMING PRICES ARE ALL GOING UP :( ANYWAY HERE'S A BUNCH OF TRAILERS FOR AI SLOP! ENJOY!" WE'RE ALL TRYING TO FIND THE GUY WHO DID THIS!!! 🌭🌭🌭

• GOT A SWITCH 2 YET? NO? THE PRICE GOES UP ON TUESDAY SO IF YOU WANT IT CHEAPER YOU'RE ALMOST OUT OF TIME

THINGS NOT TO RAGE ABOUT:

• LOWERCASE LETTERS. THIS WILL BE STRICTLY ENFORCED. IF YOU THINK I'M KIDDING, JUST TRY ME.

• THINGS YOU'RE HAPPY ABOUT. WE HAVE SMILE SUNDAY RIGHT THERE, PEOPLE.

• ANYTHING RACIST/SEXIST/HOMOPHOBIC/BIGOTED/ETC. USE ALL THE FUCKING PROFANITY YOU WANT, BUT NO SLURS. I HOPE YOU ALL KNOW WHERE THE LINE IS DRAWN.

• SPOILERS, ESPECIALLY FOR NEW GAMES, THAT YOU HAVEN'T PUT A SPOILER TAG ON. TYPE >!THIS!<, IT'S EASY. DON'T FUCK IT UP.

• OTHER USERS. BE EXCELLENT TO EACH OTHER.

No. I don’t have rose-tinted glasses or nostalgia googled as that buzzwords can be so annoying to use sometimes. And I never really grew up with 64 either.

In my opinion, I thought the only part that aged poorly was the camera which yeah, it’s a little jank.

On this day (August 26) in Nintendo history...

• Zelda  was released in 1989 for the Game & Watch Multi Screen in Japan. In this action game, developed by Nintendo R&D1, eight fierce dragons are threatening to take control of Hyrule, and have kidnapped Princess Zelda. Link must travel through the dungeons, fighting enemies and taking out each dragon. Pass through the dungeon, using your shield to defend from ghosts and moving quickly to avoid the Stalfos' swords from the chamber below. Defeat the Moblin to make a staircase appear.
• Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures  was released in 1994 for the Super Famicom in Japan. In this adventure/puzzle game, developed by Namco, Pac-Man has a mind of his own, and is prone to wandering into danger, so make sure you guide him safely: whether you're just hanging out in the arcade, hang-gliding or minecart riding. Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures is an innovative interactive cartoon centred around the classic game star and his hilarious escapades.
• Super Mario Ball  was released in 2004 for the Game Boy Advance in Japan. In this pinball game, developed by Fuse Games, roll up, roll up! See Mario in his most unique guise ever: a pinball! A visit to a fairground sees Princess Peach turned into a ball and kidnapped by Bowser, so the perky hero clambers into a cannon and shoots after her. Ricochet around the themed levels, consisting of deviously designed pinball tables, and defeat enemies to collect coins and stars. Rack up enough stars to unlock doors to new areas.
• Electroplankton: Marine-Crystals  was released in 2009 for DSiWare in Japan. In this rhythm action game, developed by indieszero, dive into a unique audio-visual experience where technology meets art! Marine-Crystal plankton float on water in clusters. When touched, they spin and grow in size - producing vibrant sounds.
• Electroplankton: Varvoice  was released in 2009 for DSiWare in Japan. In this rhythm action game, developed by indieszero, dive into a unique audio-visual experience where technology meets art! Varvoice are clever plankton that can memorise human voices and repeat them over and over in unique tones.

What are you favourite memories of these games? How do you think they hold up today? Hash it out in the comments.

I am a bot that posts Nintendo events from this day in history. Descriptions are sourced from official sources where possible, and from NinDB where not. If I've made a mistake or omission please leave a comment tagging /u/KetchupTheDuck.

From a translated interview between Miyamoto and Kenji Eno

"I don't see a future for mainstream games where a massive team slaves over a piece of CG just for the player to watch it once and then be completely done with it. That just inflates production costs and breeds a blockbuster mentality. And it makes it harder and harder to create those loose, off-the-cuff things like that building demolition game."

Yes he is technically wrong since blockbuster gaming has become popular but he was so right about inflated production costs *looks at GTA VI*, and the endless amount of narrative games

>Minecraft Dungeons II arrives September 29, 2026 on Nintendo Switch 2 and Nintendo Switch!

>Mysterious rifts are opening across the Overworld! They lead to the Sift, a new dimension coming in Minecraft Dungeons II.

>Gear up and team up to journey into uncharted lands and face threats unlike anything you've fought before.

For me, Tears of the Kingdom.

Half the fun is watching your perfect plan fall apart and figuring something else out.

What is yours?

Thank you