The Nintendo 3DS’ Surprisingly Social Legacy

I tell this story a lot: I didn’t have much of a life before the Nintendo 3DS.

It happened a year after I moved to New York. Aside from my housemates and a couple of over-friendly acquaintances, I didn’t know a lot of people, and certainly none who’d play video games with me. It was a sunny fall day in 2014 when Nintendo released its free demo for Super Smash Bros. 4 on the handheld 3DS system. The competitive fighting game’s launch, a month from then, was slated to be my highlight of the year. I’d celebrated every Smash launch before it. Unconscionable snack foods, hours of screaming in basements packed with friends and friends-of-friends left back in prior homes. As Smash 4’s launch approached, I prayed for a good online versus mode.

I loved the demo, but sitting alone in bed, I quickly became bored of pummeling Smash 4’s CPUs. I packed my pearl-pink 3DS into a backpack and walked over to the nearest coffee shop. On the back patio, I sipped too-strong cold brew and practiced Zelda’s aerial combos. I was absorbed, not noticing the people around me, and hoping that, in a space better suited to ostentatious reading and Tinder dates, nobody would notice me. I looked up briefly between sips of coffee. Just people. Then, I noticed them: three Nintendo 3DSes, all at one table, and all running the Smash 4 demo. Whoa.