Reminder: Hack Your 3DS

Published on Apr 9, 2024

Earlier this week, on April 8th, Nintendo completed their slow-rolling shutdown of 3DS and WiiU support by turning off all Nintendo Network online functionality. As of now, it is no longer possible to play 3DS and WiiU games online through the Nintendo Network.

I've written about each step of Nintendo's progressive sunsetting of these platforms as they've come to pass, so this won't be new to any regular readers, but:

This is a perfect opportunity to once again ask you to hack your 3DS.

Despite Nintendo shutting down the eShop and game servers, it's still possible to hack your 3DS. It's also still easy, free, and safe.

If you have a computer (or even just a phone), an SD card, and of course a 3DS or 2DS, you have everything you need.

You don't have to do anything to the hardware, no soldering or whatnot. You don't even need to be particularly tech savvy! If you can follow instructions and put files in folders, you're halfway there.

I have a dedicated section on my Links page full of info to get you started hacking!

Loading up your 3DS with custom firmware (CFW) is a great way to extend its life, add new features, or to just mess around and have fun with it!

You can dump your 3DS and DS carts to play digital copies without lugging them around, load up a wide range of classic games through emulation, and sift through some weird homebrew projects folks have ported over, like Doom (of course), Wordle, and even a mostly working version of Sonic Mania!

One of my favorite CFW features is an app called Checkpoint, which lets you backup and restore save data. So once you dump a cartridge, or just load up a digital version, you can restore the save data from your cart, and keep playing from where you left off. If you ever want to save your digital progress to your physical cart, you can do that too!

The 3DS modding scene is super active, especially in the wake of Nintendo ending their support of the console, but it's also been around a long time, the 3DS itself being over 10 years old.

This means that not only are folks working on cool new projects like the Pretendo Network and SpotPass Archival Project, but it's also pretty easy to troubleshoot issues, and find answers to any CFW-related questions. If you run into an issue, chances are someone else has run into it and found a fix in the past ten years.

The 3DS has one of the best game libraries in history. Do yourself a favor and crack it open. You're guaranteed to find a few gems.