Switch 2: Two fans watch the Nintendo Direct in a special way and remind me why I love tech and gaming

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I also watched the Nintendo Direct, but like that?

The presentation of the Nintendo Switch 2 at yesterday’s (April 2, 2025) Nintendo Direct was eagerly awaited by many players, including me.

But one fan unpacked the 14-year-old Nintendo New-3DS and paid homage to Nintendo like no other.The keyword here is “hardly”.

Ideas like this are one of the reasons why I love the gaming community.

Old console as streaming device

The user bluesnooow showed in the NintendoSwitch2 subreddit how he followed the Nintendo Direct and other users celebrated him for it – including me.

He watched the Nintendo Direct on his modded New 3DS:

Locked In for the Livestream
byu/bluesnooow inNintendoSwitch2

Funnily enough, he wasn’t the only one who had this idea. In the same post, user ASignificantSpek shows that he did exactly the same.

Why on the New 3DS? The users didn’t give a reason for why they made the announcement look the way it does, but I have a guess: because they can.

That’s what I love about gaming and tech communities: People have ideas and follow them through despite relatively complicated implementation.

What does it all get them? Absolutely nothing they couldn’t have gotten on a PC or smartphone. They apparently did it because it’s cool. I can only celebrate that.

The users seem to have a passion for hardware modding, because their profiles include several posts about modding various older devices.

In the process, user ASignificantSpek could hardly wait for the Switch 2 to be announced and made his own GameBoy SP out of cardboard. Even if that has precious little to do with modding, I still have the utmost respect for it:

What was a New 3DS again?

Although the Nintendo DS is one of the most successful consoles of all time, the last generation of handhelds has probably been somewhat overlooked. At least that’s how it seems to me – even though colleagues assure me that they know some people who still play New 3DS quite often.

Just a reminder: The New 3DS had games that were only playable on this device. This was already true for the conventional 3DS, but here it was probably clear to players where the difference to previous DS versions lay: in the 3D display.

The additional shoulder buttons and the mini-analog stick were apparently not enough to distinguish the console from its predecessor, I suspect. A similar problem to the one with the Wii U.

If you want to see all DS models in comparison again: YouTuber Tech Guy Beau shows you the devices again here:

Posts from the nintendoswitch2
community on Reddit

What was a New 3DS again?

Although the Nintendo DS is one of the most successful consoles of all time, the last generation of handhelds has probably been somewhat overlooked. At least that’s how it seems to me – even though colleagues assure me that they know some people who still play New 3DS quite often.

Just a reminder: The New 3DS had games that were only playable on this device. This was already true for the conventional 3DS, but here it was probably clear to players where the difference to previous DS versions lay: in the 3D display.

The additional shoulder buttons and the mini-analog stick were apparently not enough to distinguish the console from its predecessor, I suspect. A similar problem to the one with the Wii U.

If you want to see all DS models in comparison again: YouTuber Tech Guy Beau shows you the devices again here:

The New 3DS was so unpopular that it doesn’t even appear in the statistics for the best-selling consoles in the world. This means that its sales figures are even lower than those of the PlayStation Vita.

And yet there are still modders dedicating themselves to this console, especially after Nintendo shut down the servers. In my opinion, that’s just awesome.

What do you think of such projects? Do you like them as much as I do? Feel free to write it in the comments!