The Nintendo 3DS is the latest (2011) in Nintendo's line of portable games consoles, that started with the simple Game & Watch series from the 1980s to the release of the Game Boy in 1989, which brought changeable cartridges to portable gaming. The 3DS introduces, as the name suggests, autostereoscopic 3D to portable gaming. The system opens horizontally with two screens at 135° angle from each other, with the lower screen producing a stereoscopic effect without the need for glasses. This is currently the only console to be able to produce this effect, and is in keeping with the late 2000s resurgence of 3-dimensional viewing - in cinemas and in home television sets.

Nintendo had been developing 3D gaming since the 1980s and had even released a system based on the monochromatic Game Boy in 1989, called the Virtual Boy. Due to technical limitations it was large and bulky, included a viewing system attached to a console on a stand and projected wired frame graphics in red on a black screen. A market failure, it was quickly removed from Nintendo's roster. The 3DS, on the other hand, produces full colour graphics and autostereoscopic effects, has wifi capabilities and portability, which have helped to make it the fastest pre-release selling game console in the UK, and fastest selling games console ever in Australia.