http://kotaku.com/salvaging-games-from-a-broken-3ds-is-surprisingly-easy-1687498063
Salvaging Games From A Broken 3DS Is Surprisingly Easy
1
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God I want the regular n3ds so badly, or at least give me the colored buttons.
My 3DS bit the dust a few months back. Rather than pay for Nintendo to fix it, I waited for the New 3DS. Unfortunately, most of my games were purchased digitally, and you can't just insert an old SD card into a New 3DS. On Nintendo platforms, games are tied to the hardware. Dumb? Yes. Reality? Also yes! So I got on the phone with Nintendo to find out what my options were.2
well your first problem is that you bought most of your games digitally. don't do that, it's an extremely dumb decision.
The short version is I was able to get my games back pretty quickly. The longer version? Well...
See, the handheld refused to hold a charge. I swapped the battery for a new one, plugged in a different cable, and tried every other trick around the Internet, but nothing worked. It was dead.
Honestly, I'd been looking for a reason to purchase another 3DS for a while. I'd been jealous of the larger screen on the 3DS XL, but that didn't seem worth spending a few hundred dollars. When my 3DS went kaput, however, and a new-and-improved model was on the horizon, the stars had aligned. The question was how my digital games were going to make the journey.
On just about any other device these days, handheld or not, it's simple. You connect an existing store account to a new device, download the old software, and move on with your life. On most platforms, even your save files are stored in the cloud, so you won't lose progress on your games.
The 3DS does not work that way.
For anyone with a working 3DS, the process is annoying but ultimately straightforward. By flipping on on both 3DS machines and initiating a system transfer, the content will slowly but surely move from one device to another. Since my 3DS won't turn on, that's not a possibility.
I was prepared for the worst. Could my games be lost forever? Would Nintendo force me to fix my old 3DS? Fortunately, I'm happy to report the process was quick, easy, and painless. Yep!
It began after my New 3DS showed up. Nintendo's phone lines were swamped, so I dropped into their web chat. After an hour of endlessly queueing up, I gave up and submitted a support ticket. Nintendo promised to get back to me quickly, and this showed up just a few days later:
I responded and said this didn't solve my issue. Impatient, I called Nintendo in the meantime.
The whole call lasted less than 10 minutes. I barely had to explain my situation to the Nintendo representative that picked up before he was taking down my information. Clearly, I was not the first person to call about this problem. He asked me for my Nintendo Network ID, quizzed me about a few purchases made to the account, and asked for the serial number for my New 3DS. 3
Wow, really?
And that was it.
The rep told me it'd be two business days before the ID was transferred to the new device, and an email from Nintendo would show up when the process was complete. Sure enough, two days later, an email from Nintendo popped up and told me to log in on my New 3DS.
After punching in all my information, I headed over the ye ol' eShop. Drum roll please…
Ta-da!
While I have to re-download my games, all of the purchases are on my New 3DS. It feels good to have Pushmo back in my life. (If you haven't played Pushmo, what're you doing? Go fix that.)
There's a catch, of course: my save data didn't move over. Nintendo doesn't store saves in the cloud. The New 3DS uses Micro SD cards and I don't have a way of reading them on my computer, so there's no way to drag the data from my old 3DS SD card to my New 3DS SD card.4
That wouldn't work anyways. In most cases, the save games are part of the game files unless you back them up and the game files are tied to the console.
Salvaging Games From A Broken 3DS Is Surprisingly Easy
The following reply is unapproved. Warning: It may contain graphic material.
Show reply
God I want the regular n3ds so badly, or at least give me the colored buttons.
My 3DS bit the dust a few months back. Rather than pay for Nintendo to fix it, I waited for the New 3DS. Unfortunately, most of my games were purchased digitally, and you can't just insert an old SD card into a New 3DS. On Nintendo platforms, games are tied to the hardware. Dumb? Yes. Reality? Also yes! So I got on the phone with Nintendo to find out what my options were.2
well your first problem is that you bought most of your games digitally. don't do that, it's an extremely dumb decision.
The short version is I was able to get my games back pretty quickly. The longer version? Well...
See, the handheld refused to hold a charge. I swapped the battery for a new one, plugged in a different cable, and tried every other trick around the Internet, but nothing worked. It was dead.
Honestly, I'd been looking for a reason to purchase another 3DS for a while. I'd been jealous of the larger screen on the 3DS XL, but that didn't seem worth spending a few hundred dollars. When my 3DS went kaput, however, and a new-and-improved model was on the horizon, the stars had aligned. The question was how my digital games were going to make the journey.
On just about any other device these days, handheld or not, it's simple. You connect an existing store account to a new device, download the old software, and move on with your life. On most platforms, even your save files are stored in the cloud, so you won't lose progress on your games.
The 3DS does not work that way.
For anyone with a working 3DS, the process is annoying but ultimately straightforward. By flipping on on both 3DS machines and initiating a system transfer, the content will slowly but surely move from one device to another. Since my 3DS won't turn on, that's not a possibility.
I was prepared for the worst. Could my games be lost forever? Would Nintendo force me to fix my old 3DS? Fortunately, I'm happy to report the process was quick, easy, and painless. Yep!
It began after my New 3DS showed up. Nintendo's phone lines were swamped, so I dropped into their web chat. After an hour of endlessly queueing up, I gave up and submitted a support ticket. Nintendo promised to get back to me quickly, and this showed up just a few days later:
I responded and said this didn't solve my issue. Impatient, I called Nintendo in the meantime.
The whole call lasted less than 10 minutes. I barely had to explain my situation to the Nintendo representative that picked up before he was taking down my information. Clearly, I was not the first person to call about this problem. He asked me for my Nintendo Network ID, quizzed me about a few purchases made to the account, and asked for the serial number for my New 3DS. 3
Wow, really?
And that was it.
The rep told me it'd be two business days before the ID was transferred to the new device, and an email from Nintendo would show up when the process was complete. Sure enough, two days later, an email from Nintendo popped up and told me to log in on my New 3DS.
After punching in all my information, I headed over the ye ol' eShop. Drum roll please…
Ta-da!
While I have to re-download my games, all of the purchases are on my New 3DS. It feels good to have Pushmo back in my life. (If you haven't played Pushmo, what're you doing? Go fix that.)
There's a catch, of course: my save data didn't move over. Nintendo doesn't store saves in the cloud. The New 3DS uses Micro SD cards and I don't have a way of reading them on my computer, so there's no way to drag the data from my old 3DS SD card to my New 3DS SD card.4
That wouldn't work anyways. In most cases, the save games are part of the game files unless you back them up and the game files are tied to the console.
but it is what is. Better than no option at all.
