Root through your drawers, and check that cardboard box in the attic: 3DS prices are going through the roof. As spotted by X account Pirat_Nation, the old Nintendo handheld is now selling secondhand for as much as or more than they did at launch.
The 3DS, originally released in 2010, was officially discontinued in 2020. A successor to the massively successful Nintendo DS, it matched its predecessor’s two-screen clamshell design, but this time with a stereoscopic 3D screen on the top half that didn’t require wearing magic glasses. It was, despite how you might remember things, a phenomenal success, selling a wild 75.94 million units across its ten years and various incarnations. Yet, despite this apparent ubiquity, demand for the devices is currently skyrocketing such that a used 3DS XL—which you could have picked up a year ago for under $100—can right now fetch you upward of $250.
3DS Prices Are Spiking
This Decade-Old Nintendo Handheld Is Now Worth Almost as Much as a Switch 2
New 3DS XL models are often selling for $200 to $350 used.
Prices are likely to keep climbing. pic.twitter.com/s0SZJecvzM
— Pirat_Nation 🔴 (@Pirat_Nation) December 29, 2025
Given the larger 3DS XL cost $200 on release (which itself was $50 cheaper than the original 3DS at launch), this is a massive price. It goes even higher if you’re looking for the so-called New Nintendo 3DS XL, the 2014 version of the handheld that added a new C-Stick and a better CPU, which you’ll struggle to pick up in good condition under $280. (If you scour eBay you might at first declare, “This idiot so-called ‘journalist’ has it all wrong!” until you look a bit closer and notice the lower prices will be for Japanese-only LL models, or listings that eventually reveal details about damaged LCD screens and the like.) It’s not entirely clear what’s driving this new interest; there hasn’t been a significant jump in piracy techniques since custom firmware superseded the need for flashcarts a few years back. Still, the 3DS remains an amazing gaming device.
While the 3D effect was never something that really worked for me (with imperfect eyesight, it just looked blurry and unconvincing, and I’d inevitably just switch the effect off in every new game), it’s essentially a faster, bigger, and better Nintendo DS (the best console ever made, obviously), and is backwards compatible with the wonderful archive of DS games that preceded it. My 3DS XL sits proudly on the shelves behind me, secure in the knowledge that I’ll never sell it (well, unless prices spike an awful lot more), a copy of Pokémon Ultra Moon in the cart slot as nature intended. But it’s tempting!
