Nintendo's New President Gives Some Hope To Those Wanting A 3DS Successor

The Nintendo 3DS has seen some respectable success since its initial launch in 2011. The handheld has sold an estimated total of 73 million units as of March 2018, but what's shocking is the amount of software that's been sold to date, sitting at an approximate total of 365 million units. With numbers like these, it's perhaps no surprise that Nintendo may be considering a possible successor to the 3DS.

At Nintendo's 78th Annual General Meeting of Shareholders, daily Japanese newspaper Kyoto Shimbun had a chance to chat with Nintendo's recently promoted president, Shuntaro Furukawa. During the meeting, Furukawa discussed a number of topics, from the company's plans "to make smartphone games a pillar of [our] income" to how well the Nintendo Switch is selling. The company's 3DS came up and when asked of a possible successor, Furukawa briskly said the company is "considering various possibilities."

This is no way confirms that Nintendo is prototyping a 3DS successor. However, it does suggest that Nintendo may be interested in what a successor to the Nintendo 3DS could look like in the current market.

Though the Nintendo Switch is a console-handheld hybrid, Nintendo thinks of the Switch as a home console first and foremost. Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime firmly said so in an interview with Wired, "At its heart, [Switch is] a home console that you can take with you on the go." This seems to propose that both the 3DS and Switch will continue to exist alongside each other for the foreseeable future.