Topic: How long until the 3ds dies?

When the Switch started selling like hotcakes it made everyone wonder, would Nintendo still continue to support the 3ds alongside the Switch? Reggie Fils-Aime of Nintendo of America promised us that the Nintendo Switch and 3ds would coexist for (years?) to come. But from the looks of 2017 it looks like the 3ds may be dying sooner than we expected. From this excellent article on Kotaku I found they summarized what happened in 2017 for the 3ds and other consoles in their series "The State of".
Link: https://kotaku.com/the-state-of-the-3ds-in-2017-1821139151
Let's take a look at the games that were released this year.
January - Dragon Quest VIII,
February - Poochy & Yoshi's Wolly World
March - Mario Sports Superstars
April - Bye-Bye BoxBoy!
May - Fire Emblem Echoes
June - Ever Oasis
July - Dragon Quest XI (Japan only)
September - Miitopia, Hey! Pikmin, Metroid: Samus Returns, Monster hunter Stories, Minecraft New 3ds addition
October - Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, Fire Emblem Warrior, Layton's Mystery Journey
November - Mario Party The Best 100, Pokemon Ultra Sun and Moon, Physical Version of Minecraft
December - Style Savvy
Did you notice that most of the games released were from 3rd and 2nd parties? It seems very clear that Nintendo focused their 1st party games on the Switch. This has me wondering what will 2018 be like for the 3ds. Will the launch lineup be even worse compared to this year?
Please share your thoughts on the future of the 3ds.

Aside from a smattering of third party releases in the future, the 3DS is done.

There are at least three new games I'm still looking forward to on the platform, though. All from Atlus.

Maybe we'll get an announcement from Nintendo of the 3DS' follow-up come half-way or earlier next year. Kimishima did say he still sees a market in sole handheld development, even if that's kinda silly considering the Switch is firmly in that market already. And, no, I will never give it credit as a home-console unless it has solid reasons to be given such credit.

@Ralizah Yeah Atlus and Square Enix seem to have been the most supportive developers for the 3ds. Though I think we'll see less, or if any, from Square considering they stated they'll be "aggressively" supporting the Switch. The others genres seem to have died out and only Japanese developers are supporting it with RPGs.

@MFD I could see that happening as some minor mentions in a Nintendo direct around January.
-I'm sure most people agree the Switch is a hybrid system-

I think how long the 3DS is supported will depend on the Switch paid online subscription. There's a number of ways Nintendo may try and convince people to pay the subscription:

• Shut down Wii U and 3DS online servers before launch (though not Nintendo's fault last time, this matches up with the Wii/DS situation before MK8 release)
• Rather than group lots of services together like Xbox and PS, have different tiers (e.g. tier 1 has online multiplayer and eshop discounts for $20 a year, tier 2 has that and free classic games for $30 a year)
• Allow you to spend My Nintendo coins on the subscription (Xbox Live Rewards has a similar system in place for Xbox Live Gold membership so why not?)

If Nintendo shuts down the servers, of course they're not going to be supporting it much longer.

@iLikeUrAttitude I've gone over the hybrid argument many a time, but the fact remains that having 2 camps with different priorities and wants out of their machines stuck together gives friction. I don't like having to pay full price for a game that runs worse in every possible respect compared to it's competitors, just because it has the feature to go handheld which I never use.

@Grumblevolcano
Ugh I would hate it if Nintendo would cancel the services that early. Personally I think Miiverse could've stayed a lot longer than it did. I mean PS3 STILL gets online support, not sure about the xbox 360 though.
I like your other ideas, hopefully Nintendo will have a similar format, but at least they promised us a Netflix style Virtual Console. But it's weird how Nintendo still hasn't revealed their virtual console... does it have something to do with wanting to sell more classic NES and SNES units? Or could releasing the virtual console early hurt the sales of 3rd parties?

@MFD That is fair. Personally I'm think I'm going to use my Switch in handheld mode whenever I can because I'm used to playing with portables.
But I'll take a feature that some people may not use than having to pay more money for a gimmick no one will use at all (Looking at you 3ds).

I think 2018 will be the last year the 3DS gets first party games but there will still be localizations of Japanese third party games after that.

@CrazyOtto Yeah that seems highly likely, the 3ds is still getting a lot of RPGs from Atlus, Square and other studios.
Nintendo is probably going to bring just more ports and remasters.

@iLikeUrAttitude I concur with that sentiment, and Nintendo did acknowledge that by making the 2DS, but then I've seen plenty of people get upset when 3D was not in a 3DS game.

I'd like 2 separate consoles again, so that one does not take from the other in terms of specs. The Switch is limited by it's form-factor, a real home-console would not be.

@MFD Really, people actually complained about a lack of 3d? That's a first for me. The only time I even turn on my 3d is when it's accidental.
I would be on board with the idea of two separate consoles, but then you also have to factor in that Nintendo would then be supporting 3 platforms (assuming the 3ds isn't dead by 2018). Imagine if Sony were to make their own "PlayStation Swap" . They would have to support both platforms with 1st and 3rd party software. If the PlayStation Swap's library were just ports form the Ps4, what reason would you have to buy a Ps4 if the game you have is now portable and not that bad on a technical level? PlayStation would basically be competing with themselves.
Imo it would be better to make an upgraded Switch iteration later on in it's life cycle like Nintendo did multiple times with the 3ds and ds.

@iLikeUrAttitude Or just a powered-up dock would be a good start as well. What I'm looking for, is validity to the docked mode, something the dock currently doesn't inspire, with it's near-empty plastic shell.

A very simple way for Nintendo to grant this, is by advertising previously handheld games now available on the big-screen as a home-console experience, though I doubt they'd do this. They were paranoid to allow external USB's hooked up to the dock because "What if people see it as less portable?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!" http://letsplayvideogames.com/2016/10/report-nintendo-switch-...

@MFD Huh, I forgot the idea of a powered up dock. But I'm still confused how that works, if the Switch is the console and the Dock just acts like an HDMI output, then how would a new dock make it more powerful?

That a nice idea you got there, but it's too good and benefits the consumer so Nintendo probably won't do it.
Also.. dear God, did they actual say that about the dock?

@iLikeUrAttitude
All the video games will be discontinued someday.
For 3DS, i can enlarge my collections by take a look some Old games that i have never owned before. Also, i can check the Japanese ONLY version to enlarge my collections, IF i can found at least 6 interesting Japan ONLY 3DS games.

@Anti-Matter Are you referring to my comment about the possibility of Wii-U and 3ds servers being shut down? If so then while it is true that all things come to an end I would prefer it if Nintendo didn't shut down servers so early like they did with Miiverse to this day the ps3 and xbox 360 still get online support. I don't see why Nintendo can't do the same.
But could you please explain you comment better? I know English isn't your first language and I'm not trying to be rude, I just want to understand you better so we can all have a discussion.

@iLikeUrAttitude It seems so, and yes I'm with you on how silly that is. I've heard people say that a power-up dock is a possibility, apparently Digital Foundry said so as well, so it's up to Nintendo to make work of it.

@MFD Well I'll take either that or a upgraded Switch altogether.

For me that is when netplay games ends like DS did, at the earliest.