Nintendo has always been a strange company. The Kyoto-based game maker turned an Italian plumber into one of pop culture’s biggest icons, and the company has experimented with everything from DIY cardboard game accessories to three-pronged controllers. This unpredictable nature is what makes Nintendo so exciting (and occasionally infuriating).
Often, these concepts seem to come out of left field — but at its best, Nintendo makes the strange feel necessary. Nowhere was that more apparent than with the Nintendo DS line of dual-screened handhelds.
That era is now over, as Nintendo recently discontinued the 3DS and all of its various models. The news isn’t surprising: the Switch has become a runaway success, largely supplanting the need for…