I mean, there’s clearly a demand for it since the prices have gotten through the roof. Should I really purchase one or is it pointless and a waste of money. What’s the reason behind its sudden resurgence despite it being an “old” console as the Switch lineup has replaced it? Does it have to do with physical game ownership?
Price. At least one person here says the official hardware is going for like US$1200 on eBay.
Maybe features too. I generally prefer to emulate older games because of instant save states, fast-forward, slow or rewind, rendering improvements, that sort of thing. Not sure how much of that is possible with jailbreaking.
Don’t forget performance. Yes, playing 3DS games on native hardware will be the most authentic experience, but a Thor can emulate a lot more than a 3DS can. Wind Waker HD on a portable dual screen is cool as fuck.
As someone lucky enough to own both a modded New 3DSXL and a Thor, I’d recommend the Thor first unless you’re looking to only play games from the 3DS era or older.
That must be some mint unopened special edition 3DS. Cheapest route is to get Japanese used 3DS and jailbreak it.
Reason to prefer original for 3DS is that emulator handhelds have subpar stylus for stylus heavy games. I’ve been drawing with Pokémon art academy on mine.
I personally prefer emulation if its good too. And yes, some features would be a reason to do it, I didn’t think about those. To me emulating 3DS was always a hassle that the only solution I saw was using original hardware to play the games. Now that you brought it up, I can see it. Also the price is true too. I don’t think it will go down, if anything, in future it might be more rare and go up.
Good points.
More powerful handhelds can also upscale and handle heavier graphical tweaks. Honestly, except for the actual 3D effect itself the experience for me has just been better in general on an emulation handheld.
Also, in my experience setting up an emulation handheld was easier than setting up a hacked 3DS.