Is buying a japanese 3DS worth it?

is buying a imported 3ds actually worth it? sort of but it depends on how much effort you want to put into it.

[drehumble]

A refurbished New 3DS XL (not even a special edition model) is $20 more expensive than a refurbished OG switch at Gamestop.

[roninronstadt]

This felt like the longest 4 minute video ever

[mem]

i bought a japanesse 3ds 'll' on facebook due to it's cheap price, it's languaje was already set to my native languaje and i've modded it, but the problem i had is that i was trying to find a '3ds ll' for so long, and now i just learned it's basically a xl model

[freshberries]

It is 100% worth it. I modded it and did a region change; and my eshop and pokemon bank work because I did a SOAP transfer which only took like 15 minutes. My NNID works too because I made it after I did the region change.

[jetza]

It's definitely worth it. I bought a japanese new 3ds xl a few years ago at a reasonable price and it's been doing wonders for me after I modded it.

[omarverdugo]

The last option of the video should've been "JUST LEARN JAPANESE"

[shyshy]

I bought my 3dsLL literally just because it came in a color I liked.

[VezixHaikal]

i got my japanese 3ds pre-modded with language change to english, its honestly peak
eshop is dead anyway so Hshop all the way

[checob]

Sadly japanese consoles has been getting as expensive as the American one.

[ItamiFromBoomBeach]

cool video. I own a nintendo 3ds (and also a nintendo ds and ds lite) from Japan and I have about 30-40 cartridges with different Japanese games. I have been playing these Japanese games since 2005 somehow without a translator. 2 weeks ago I decided to play some old games (bowsers inside story, pokemon black & white, mario hoops 3 on 3) and it was a very pleasant experience :)

[luciantendogaming]

Me getting a Majoras Mask New 3ds XL for 49 dollars on a PawnShop plus getting Pokemon White Pokemon White 2 Pokemon Platinum plus HeartGold Link Between Worlds and Samus Returns for 30 dollars all of them authentic

LITERALLY ONE OF IF NOT MY BEST FIND and this coming from a person that buys and sells as a really steady hobby....

And it has been my go to system since i got it last month and truly a great companion after i got a surgery done last week 🙂🧡

So dont give up guys dont overpay this ridiculous prices just take your time and look around

May God bless you All Mates

[namajeff]

I got a sealed 2ds XL in japan around 2 weeks ago when I was in Fujisawa
and not only was it cheap but it was just insane that it was still sealed and even had the OG 4gb SD card, protection cloth/plastic that's between the screens and so on
the box was in a perfect condition too
there is genuinely 0 downsides of a japanese 3ds, you can use google lens for the initial set up and then you can use luma locale switcher to change the languages of any game to English, if you even need to do that in the first place
One thing you didn't mention is that there is a third option for region changing your 3DS, which is the SOAP method, this method keeps the eshop stuff intact 100%
the only downside is that the whole process takes around a week to finish up

[thelateone]

I bought a 3ds LL from Ali a year ago and the vendor put a custom firmware on it and filled a microsd with all kind of games and were just ready to install. That wasn't even advertised in the product page lol

[-dmm]

this whole Japan versions being cheap is not really true anymore for a little while. I literally bought a Japan version N3DSLL for 240$ with tax and everything. I got an extremely mint version with no scratches on screen and extremely minimal nick and scratch on original shells extremely hard to see and charger and stylus and pre modded. That's why it was high.

If you want an almost perfect one these are the prices they are going for. I understand if people want some beat up scratched up screens you can get for way cheaper.

This whole perception that LL is cheaper than XL is old now.

What I would recommend is looking at the seller and seeing reviews on them and seeing how long they been on website how many stars how many returns they get. I ended up buying from like a mom and pop shop of a family that sells old retro stuff and they were legit.

One thing I would worry is yellowing. I hear many stories about LL consoles having yellowing which I would not have enjoyed if mine came like that.

[ultralance]

Honestly, region swap is no worse than getting the custom firmware on it (though it makes the process take roughly twice as long). Difficulty level is about identical, and the only real risk of the region change bricking your console is if you hack it and then remove custom firmware without putting it back to Japanese first - i.e. if you wanna unhack it for some bizarre reason, don't try doing it manually, just restore a NAND backup that was made before it was modded. lol

[Knockoff_Zacian]

I would hold back on purchasing modded consoles if you don't know how to do it since Nintendo isn't done with updates making the user add new patches

[jontheartist]

Get a new 2ds xl. Its cheap, can emulate a lot of extra custom firmware and even n64 games with the extra power, and is very durable.

[Leon.Huntress.wizard]

There is like you did say also a way to change the region completely but it is hard to do. I did find it harder then the modding it self. The only problem then is that updates won’t work yeah this is a big problem but you can still download the updates manual. So buying a Japanese console is worth it but you have some limitations. So it did not brick my 3ds but in my opinion it kinda sucks. So yeah the e shop did not work after I did everything right that’s why I think the e shop doesn’t work to 100%

[LilfoxTheHybridHylian]

Yes fr...in my country people are selling used 3ds systems for 1k n up.
( Note that im from The Caribbean, Trinidad and Tobago 🇹🇹 and currency exchange exists. )

The consoles got scratches or whatever and people are selling them that high. Youre better off buying a used switch because of how expensive people are selling the 3ds's for. Its ridiculous and im not going online to buy one and then it gets shipped down to my country..cause they charge alot for shipping

[FlipnoteNeedle]

I use a New 3DS LL right now. Its lime green (and modded ofc i am not learning japanese