Metroid Samus Nintendo 3DS XL Lands September 15

By Shane McGlaun

I am probably in the minority of old school gamers who were around back when the first Metroid game came out and never really cared for the franchise. I was much more interested in Mario games and games of that ilk than Metroid back in the day. Fans of the franchise who are in the market for a new Nintendo 3DS XL might want to hold off about a month because Nintendo has a special edition portable console coming reports CinemaBlend.

Nintendo of America has announced that on September 15 there will be a special edition Metroid themed 3DS XL launch. That launch is timed to coincide with the launch of the video game “Metroid: Samus Returns” video game. Nintendo notes that the special console will be available at select retailers.

The catch with that statement is that we have no idea which retailers will get the console at this time and no indication of how much it will cost. The announcement of the special edition 3DS XL came via the official Nintendo of America twitter account. There is one rub, fans are used to getting special edition hardware with cool graphics and often the special editions come with a copy of the game that matches the themed hardware.

This special edition 3DS XL doesn’t come with physical or digital copy of “Metroid: Samus Returns.” That is sort of a bummer. I think the best news for fans of the 3DS XL is that despite the booming popularity of the portable Switch console, Nintendo is still making special editions of the 3DS XL at all. Many thought that the arrival of the Switch might signal the demise of the 3DS line, that hasn’t happened so far.