It's a sad day in gaming, as NintendoSoup announces that there have been exactly zero new 3DS games released in 2020. It's something many people saw coming after the release of the Switch in 2017: now that their handheld and home console lines were combined into one, the DS line might begin to fade out as developers turned their gaze to the more powerful Switch. Even having this foresight doesn't fully soften the blow for DS fans as the metaphorical lights begin to go out on this once-ubiquitous handheld.
The last physical game released for the DS line was actually over a year and a half ago with Great War: East Asia Rise And Falls History DX in late May of 2019. A straggler title that wasn't exactly flying off shelves may have been the final cry of physical games for the DS, while the last digital release was Dragon Fang Z. Dragon Fang released in late December: cutting tantalizingly close to being the only DS game to drop in 2020, but falling just shy.
Now that it's been nearly eight months since anything was released, it may be time to come to terms with the end of an era. From the 2004 launch of the first DS to 2019 when the last game released, the handheld console survived for a decade and a half - and, for the most part, reigned supreme over the handheld market for that time. The PSP models did offer some competition, but didn't perform nearly as well internationally, and lost much of their support from Sony long before Nintendo was ready to let go of the DS.
If this really is the end of the DS, that might mean that sometime in the next few years, the Nintendo eShop will lose online support. While it's a good idea to make sure you've gotten any digital-only games you want as soon as possible, Nintendo probably isn't in any rush to close the service down. The Wii Shop Channel only closed in January of last year, despite two other Nintendo consoles releasing in the time before closing (the Wii U and Switch). If the Shop Channel lasted that long, the eShop isn't likely to close its digital doors until at least 2022.
Even so, DS fans everywhere are waving a tearful goodbye as the beloved handheld console fizzles out after 15 years of service.
(Source: NintendoSoup)