Be Excellent To Each Other

Mini Kov wants a 3DS XL for his birthday.

Had a look on amazon and there are a lot of options, which is a good buy or what should I be looking for?

A power adapter.

ok... and the handset?

What do you mean by 'a lot of options'? There's a load of different colours of course and a couple of 'limited edition' models that are themed after a bundles game (e.g. the Mario Kart one) but that's about it as far as I can see?

There's the 3DS, the 3DS XL, the New 3DS and the New 3DS XL. It is quite confusing, tbf.

Is it the original 3DS XL or the NEW 3DS XL you want? Personally, I'd go for the new one as the screen is nicer.

Apart from getting the best price from somewhere, there's not much to consider really. You can't change the faceplates on the XL so you'll just want to pick his favourite colour. After that, get a power adaptor/charger and some games.

There's another thread somewhere with the top games to pick but off the top off my head you'll be wanting Luigis mansion 2, Super Mario 3D land and if he's old enough, one of the Zelda games (Doesn't matter which one, they're all ace although my favourite was a link between worlds)

Also, I cannot put enough praise on Kid Icarus uprising. Easily in my top 5 games ever!

Ok which is in the new 3DS XL?

Yeah, but to be able to list all four model there you've had to ignore the fact that he specified '3DS XL' in his post. I didn't realise there was a new model of the XL though so that's a fair point.

If you just search for those exact terms it seems to return the right models:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_nos ... new+3ds+xl

Apology accepted.

Have they startef supplying a charger with it yet though?

The cheap bastards.

Cheers...

And you can tell it's the new one because it's got a nubbin you can use as a right analogue stick.

I think I'm right in saying that only the "New 3DS" XL can play "New 3DS" games but there about 2 such games - one of which is Xenoblade Chronicles. Just something to bear in mind depending on what you want to play on it.

Also, the naming of the various 3DS' is fucking atrocious.

I think the new Zelda will only have 3D on the new model too.

Cheers guys..

I take it all the 3DS games will play on the new 3DS

Correct. And DS games too.

Indeed, and especially as a chunk of their customer base are the kind of people who aren't going to want to, or necessarily be capable of, keeping track of all these subtle differences. If my sister or mum wanted a PS4 I'd be confident they could just walk into a shop and ask for one and get what they wanted. Yes, there'd be a few minor options but whether they bought a 500GB original model or 1TB chassis C there'd be no actual difference to their experience. If they tried that with a 3DS then fuck alone knows what they'd end up with. Nintendo are really good at being needlessly user-unfriendly when they feel like it.

You're ignoring (again!) the fact that Kov started here already knowing he wanted an XL thus instantly taking away a good few options. Also, at the time I said that I wasn't even aware there were two models of XL so it genuinely was more complex than even I realised. My sister and mum couldn't be expected to know any of that and simply asking for 'a 3DS' (which is all they know about) would result in a bewildering array of options.

Give the kid a nice SD card too.. makes it all nicer..

and i was just reading up on the best ads games http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015- ... -3ds-games
personally i really like Fire Emblem: Awakening, Mario Mini on the move, Mario 3dland, Luigi's mansion..

I'd also agree that if you can stretch to it, go for the New 3DS (XL) over the original 3DS (XL). Nicer screen, nicer hardware.

Seen it in Tesco for £149... that is me skint

They sell it without a charger?!? That's madness!

It's because you'll already have loads lying around wait a minute I'm thinking of micro USB

Actually, does it use some USB standard? My own 3DS doesn't seem to be compatible with any of my USB cables, but it is not an XL.

Nope, and it's different to the 3DS.

Are you sure? I thought they were the same?

I think he neant. Different to the DS. The switch came between ds-lite and dsi. (My son's dsi charger works on my 3ds xl-luigi edition

Yes, sorry. I got confused.

I think they were banking on everyone who bought an XL to already have had a DSi or 3DS already, which is frankly ludicrous.

No charger.?

What cable type is it?

That's why I said to buy one.

It's a proprietary Nintendo connection.

Sorry thought you were being flippant

Checked, just in case they had decided to stop being absurd, but no.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/11/80206 ... ard-to-buy

Are games just on the cartridges or can I download them

You can buy them online, but it's often no cheaper, even more expensive - for something you can't sell on.

It has it's own store of exclusives though with some brilliant games on there. Shovel Knight (although that's on cartridge I think) the Sega 3D games, Gunman Clive and Pushblox all spring to mind.

Yeah, I'd go for cartridge games on cartridge where possible, they're mostly cheapwr (sometimes considerably cheaper) than buying the same game via the eShop. The eShop is helpful though with some commercial games getting remarkably low print runs on cartridge.

The download-only selection on the eShop has some real gems, as Da Vis recommends.

The eshop does have nice discounts and times thought.. Got kid icarus, tomodachi life and fire emblem quite cheap.. Amd the comfort of the sd card on the road is excellent..

How does the Humble Bundle stuff work in terms of the 3DS games? My niece has one so I might pick them up for her but I doubt she'll ever have taken the thing online or any of that and I've no idea how Nintendo's stuff works myself. I'm guessing I need to make some kind of Nintendo online account then enter a code on a store front somewhere to be able to download the games? And what about storage; is it all done on internal storage or do you need to buy a memory card or something?

That's pretty much spot on Bamba. When you buy the bundle you'll be given a code for each game. These are redeemed on the store on the 3DS itself but before you can access the store, you need to log in with your Nintendo ID.

As for storage, everything I have on my 3DS is stored on an SD card. My 3DS came with a 4gb card but I can't say whether that's the same for all 3DS models so yes, you'll need an SD card.

Cool cool; I'll get an account set up for her then. Is there any way to tell how big an SD card I'll need? Ideally I'd like to put all the games from the Humble Bundle on a single card so they're just there for her and she doesn't need to dick around to access them. Plus a bit of future proofing in terms of space if possible in case of future purchases.

I think all 3DS models come with either a 2gb or a 4gb SD card. Pretty certain 4gb would be just about big enough for the contents of this bundle.

I think from doing a bit of reading that the original 3DS, which is what I think she's got, came with just a 2GB card so I night need to pick her up a bigger one. I'm currently trying to find out the individual game sizes and I'll go from there.

My 3DS has a 4gb card in it and only last night did I run low on space. That's after having loads and loads of games on there.

According to my spreadsheet it's 38 but probably more than 40 as I downloaded a couple of the Humble games last night and haven't added them to the spreadsheet yet. It's a mix of full retail games to Gameboy games so the sizes would vary.

I've had my 3DS for 5 years too and used it loads but yeah, future proof yourself and go for an 8gb card. They're not that expensive anyway.

According to the stuff I've Googled up the four games from the Humble Bundle come in at just under 4GB. There's a real range in sizes:

• Retro City Rampage: 16MB
• Shantae and the Pirate's Curse: 300MB
• Rhythm Thief & the Empreor's Curse: 1.53GB
• Citizens of Earth: 1.13GB

So, yeah, I think your advice to go for an 8GB card is solid. Do I need to worry about compatibility or will pretty much any card work?

I'm pretty sure any card will work. I don't need to tell you about bootleg cards or anything like that so yeah, any card will be fine.

Do you need to tell me about bootleg cards?

I will when you're older.

Are these Nintendo bundle games any good? I took a look at it but nothing really jumped out at me, but loads of you seem to have bought it.