“New 3DS” refers to the updated lineup of Nintendo 3DS systems, released between 2014 and 2017. The “New 3DS” line includes the New Nintendo 3DS, New Nintendo 3DS XL, and New Nintendo 2DS XL. The systems feature improved internal hardware, an additional analog “nub” (called the “C-Stick”), ZL and ZR buttons, NFC support for amiibo compatibility, a MicroSD card slot (replacing the previous versions’ standard-size SD slot), and on models other than the New 2DS XL, the ability to use the internal camera to track the user’s head to adjust the systems’ stereoscopic 3D effect. A number of 3DS games utilized the improved hardware while retaining compatibility with older systems, but a few titles have been released that are exclusive to the new systems.
Based on disassembly of certain sysmodules for code added/changed with in the 8.0.0-18 update, it appears that the “New 3DS” has the following internal hardware changes:
- Extended FCRAM from 128MB to 256MB.
- Added another memory-block with size 4MB.
See hardware specs here also.
The “New 3DS” uses system-titles based on as the original hardware system-titles. The JPN launch-day New3DS ships with 8.1.0-0_New3DS. Also see here and here.
New3DS has dedicated FIRM titles, separate from the old3DS FIRM titles. The New3DS FIRM pm-module will always set the New3DS TIDLow bitmask(old3DS pm-module uses the input TIDLow directly without changing it) when launching FIRM, therefore New3DS can’t boot old3DS FIRM this way. This also means that old3DS applications on New3DS run under the New3DS FIRM, with the default New3DS FCRAM mem-region settings.
The product code of the New 3DS is KTR, while the product code of the New 3DS XL is RED. Going by strings in various system titles, the New3DS codename is likely “SNAKE”.
JPN launch system #
The following titles might be pre-installed on regular 3DS systems from JPN already. But regardless, the following titles are pre-installed on launch-day JPN New3DS on the microSD: Flipnote Studio 3D, JPN video app(video is just paper-airplanes), update title for flipnote(v1.3), and update title for StreetPass Mii Plaza.
Home Menu extdata already exists on the microSD before first booting it up with system-setup.