Not sure why others are doing it, but the switch is kind of a boring console imo. You may as well just use one of the million PC handhelds with the same form factor, and persistent hacks require a hardware mod.
replyThe 3DS is a fun pocketable form factor which a lot of people already own and easy to permanently mod on any firmware version or hardware revision.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned online: most people don't want to risk console bans, and that immediately makes jailbreaking their Switch a non-starter
replyAt this point most people getting a 3DS are probably doing so specifically to jailbreak it
Most people use an EmuMMC to avoid bans. I think the bigger issue is that most Switch consoles need a hardmod.
replyThe 3DS has the novelty of 3D. I always wanted to play F-Zero in this form factor and it seemed like a reasonable port to accomplish.
replyIt seems to me that stereoscopic 3D is as much as "novelty" as is color. It's an objective improvement, because we perceive the real world in stereoscopic 3D. Of course the hardware implementation (not so much on the New 3DS) has various downsides, unlike color.
replyThe Switch is powerful enough it could just straight emulate an N64 game if it needed to. It has a huge back catalog of games where it does this. It's basically a computer on the level of a mobile phone or tablet, or a laptop from 15 years ago.
replyThe 3DS is still a _console_, purpose built and limited in what it can do. It is also approachably easy to find a good one in working order, and still has the vibe of a retro console.
Also, for fun, I suspect.
One non-obvious reason might be that it's the only handheld console with a natively 240p height screen. This means all the 2d ui elements will remain crisp at the same size as they would be on original hardware.
replyThe PS Vita has a sweet 960x544 OLED
replyI would guess the 3DS is far more "jailbroken" than the switch.
replyJailbroken 3DS scene is usually for modding the console OS itself given how easy it is to run custom firmware. And for ports, and emulation. While the GBA has a pretty dedicated community for custom games and romhacks, people often create games for the platform at gamejams because of how great the dev tooling is. It's a bit lackluster on the 3DS, but I did find the Love Brew[0] framework to be really nice. Even has simulator support[1] for testing your builds locally, though fonts will look much different on real hardware, with likely a bunch of other gotchas. Running out of RAM being a big one.
reply[1] https://github.com/lovebrew/nest
edit: compared it to the GBA homebrew scene since it's a large dedicated community to derive pros and cons between the two from. Switch is still receiving updates from Nintendo to brick your system.
It is. Any 3DS can be jailbroken with CFW with a simple Internet guide and no physical modifications. As far as I know, the Switch CFW is locked to only V1 motherboards or modchips, making it far less accessible even if it is more powerful.
replyThe N64 dev scene seems to be taking off too. If I had to guess, working around limitations in hardware are the fun part for a lot of people.
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