The Sun says 3DS is the best console ever

Nintendo’s 3DS has grown to become the best console ever released, according to UK national The Sun.

In the space of a few months, the Wii U’s little brother, the handheld 3DS, has become my favourite gaming console,” a story posted online today reads.

I don’t mean favourite handheld console, I mean favourite console full stop.

Derided for the best part of its first year as a gimmicky cash-in, it is now emerging as an essential piece of gaming hardware.

It’s in the eShop — the 3DS equivalent of the Apple App Store — that the machine is making its biggest strides. Full-price titles such as Fire Emblem (my 2013 game of the year), Luigi’s Mansion (excellent) and Monster Hunter sit beside brilliant budget games like Fallblox (best game ever for a fiver), Mario Minis On The Move, VVVVVV and HarmoKnight — starting at a fiver.

None of the games are of the throwaway 69p variety on your phone. They’re proper pieces of software worthy of your attention. I now have more than 20 sitting on the homescreen of my 3DS I can play at any time. And there’s ample space for 40 more with a 32GB SanDisk SD card, which can be picked up for a tenner.

After fairly pants sales in 2012, the 3DS is now a million ahead of the DS at the same point. That’s something Sony’s Vita can’t say about its predecessor PSP.”

However, as much as The Sun’s praise will be welcomed by Nintendo UK it still issued a damning assessment of the handheld’s stable mate the Wii U.

So here’s the bad news for Nintendo — I am the only person I know who has a Wii U,” it added. Even the most ardent Nintendo fan would have to confess that it’s been a pretty duff six months since the launch.

So for what it’s worth, here’s my advice to Nintendo — wind down the home console stuff.”

The paper’s attitude to 3DS marks a quite remarkable turnaround from just two years ago. In April 2011 The Sun falsely claimed that the 3DS was experiencing record return levels” due to its 3D features inducing headaches.

This was followed a day later by a report in which an ‘experiment’ looked to prove the machine’s painful effects.