There is no smart reason to kill off the 3DS until dies naturally. Until the 3DS stops selling it would be stupid to stop supporting it.

How can it die naturally if you keep making Mario and metroid for it.

I think they may be saying that because they're working on a portable variant of the Switch.

I'm not so sure Nintendo wants to make a Switch that by definition doesn't switch.

They could rename it, they did that with the 2DS.

I think it is good for Nintendo to have a gaming platform that people can actually walk into a store and buy, unlike the Switch, and likely the SNES Classic.

There was a very interesting slide that Nintendo showed during their annual presentation regarding the 3DS.

They shipped an additional 2 million units of Mario Kart 7, another 1 million of Animal Crossing and NSMB2, and over 3 million in legacy Pokemon games in the fiscal year that ended 03/17.

Prodding an additional 6 million people to buy a 3DS (as is their projection) is potentially worth millions in the sale of first part games that were developed years ago.

They could. Who knows what Nintendo will do. It certainly wouldn't shock me at all if Nintendo decides that the current Switch is as portable as the Switch will ever get.

Also, another element to this is that Doug Bowser isn't going to panic investors by hinting that Nintendo will sunset what has been it's most successful business (handhelds). And he's not going to tell fans that they're ending support for the 3DS while they still hope to sell six million of them this year.

Nintendo Switchless????