I Miss Nintendo 3DS StreetPass, and Games as Physical Community

By Farouk Kannout | November 7, 2025 | 2:05pm

Video Games Features nintendo 3ds

I Miss Nintendo 3DS StreetPass, and Games as Physical Community

It is the summer of 2011. I am 13 years old, and my recently purchased Nintendo 3DS is sitting in the side pocket of my cargo pants, closed and in sleep mode. I walk through the hallways of my middle school, eagerly awaiting the last bell of the day so that I can go home and see who will appear at the Mii Plaza. The digital avatars line up and introduce themselves, telling me where they’re from, their hobbies, and what game they’ve been playing recently. They ask, “How would you rate me?” I, of course, say they’re fantastic, and they respond in kind, “I think you’re fantastic!” As each Mii enters my plaza, I feel the echoes of a line from the JRPG Chrono Trigger: “Just as you touch the lives of every life form you meet, so, too, will their energy strengthen you.”

The Nintendo 3DS came with a lot of special features, the most notable being the 3D technology that it was named after, which went completely unused by me, and I imagine many others as well. My favorite thing about the console was StreetPass, a wireless communication feature that allowed users to exchange data with other nearby 3DS owners. StreetPass always made opening up your 3DS just a bit more exciting. Not only would their Mii appear in your plaza, but they would also show up in titles you both shared. Their ghost could be seen as you raced in Mario Kart 7, or you could visit their home in Animal Crossing: New Leaf. You might learn that someone out there shares the same favorite game as you, a connection to a person you may never formally meet, but a connection nonetheless.

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Nintendo designed a number of StreetPass-based games for the system, with the most notable being Find Mii I and II, where the Miis you met via StreetPass went on an epic fantasy quest to save your Mii, who was caged up by ghosts. The more paths you crossed as you walked through the real world, the more Miis would join the fight virtually, and the further along in the quest you could go. If you made multiple connections with the same person, their Mii would level up, allowing them to carry you even further through battles. This encouraged players to hang out with people they know who also had a 3DS, allowing everyone to help each other win. The Find Mii series communicated a philosophy of cooperation, that in order to overcome the odds, you would need the aid of both friend and stranger alike. This gamification of meeting face-to-face certainly comes to mind as the “loneliness epidemic” becomes a ubiquitous concern in our present moment.

Services for the 3DS have been discontinued for a few years now. While it’s been a long time since I’ve booted up my own console, I find myself wistful that it’s all over. The departure of the handheld marked a sort of nail in the coffin for games technology as a means of incentivizing physical community at a mainstream level, a tool that invited us to go out and be next to other bodies in a space.

Out of all the mainstream game companies, Nintendo has long been at the forefront of trying to make the pastime a community-oriented activity, even as it grew out of fashion in the 2000s and 2010s for most of its contemporaries. Early on, there were the game link cables, which allowed for in-person multiplayer on handheld systems like the Game Boy. I often think of the commercial for the Nintendo Wii, where two complete strangers walk up to the house of a family of four, knock on the door, and say, “We would like to play.” I remember the Wii U and its 5-player multiplayer gimmick. This console was admittedly a failed project for many reasons, but I still remember inviting friends over to goof off in Nintendo Land. Each of us would take turns being the one holding the gamepad as we entertained ourselves in Mario Chase, Luigi’s Ghost Mansion, and Sweet Day. Even the more recent Switch and Switch 2 are designed to be taken on the go and outside the home, with the sequel system advertised with more social features in mind. This, however, still feels like a far cry from how integral such interactions were with previous Nintendo systems.

I’m not so delusional as to think that there is some secret underscore of pluralism or revolutionary politics and coalition building hidden in the products of a AAA studio, but it’s not surprising that the deprioritizing of games as a way of spending time collectively in person has coincided with a political and cultural climate that has grown more oppressive and individualized. Experiments throughout gaming’s evolution, from StreetPass to LAN parties, all incentivized putting yourself right next to other human beings. Our interactions—even something as simple as passing one another in the street—were vital. You couldn’t experience all the good things the world had to offer without other people.

Merritt k’s book LAN Party documents, through essays and archival photos, an era in gaming where everyone had to come together in order to play. Low network speeds in the ‘90s and 2000s meant that many multiplayer titles didn’t work over a wireless internet connection. Thus, the LAN (local area network) party was born, a social gathering where people would bring their personal computers and consoles to one place and connect to a single router and network.

While these events stemmed from the technological limitations of the era, LAN parties created something that was more than the sum of their computer parts. K writes that, despite being far from perfect experiences that welcomed all (they were overwhelmingly white and male), LAN parties were a step towards what the marriage of technology and community could have looked like if we continued down that path. “At a time when communications technology paradoxically seems to produce a sense of disconnection for many people through algorithmically generated echo chambers and the indexing of personal worth to follower counts or likes, seeing people literally coming together with and around computers is almost aspirational,” K wrote.

The decline of LAN parties happened for many of the same reasons why these other experiments petered out. With multiplayer now possible without all the effort of transporting yourself and your hardware to a different location, the convenience of staying at home has trumped the desire to go out. The effect the pandemic has had on all this almost goes without saying, having worsened our material circumstances and permanently altered our lives in ways that further normalized separation. Tech companies have shifted towards a more explicitly conservative outlook on our relationship to technology in the years since.

Our mobile phones, algorithms, and apps are built on negative interactions and outrage culture. These digital spaces have become even more hostile as leaders in tech have come out in support of the Trump administration, openly making the Internet run counter to fostering connection. It’s no wonder live streaming services like Twitch, where people hope to feel even a glimmer of belonging by typing in a chat, have become so mainstream.

As things get more dire for many in the U.S. and abroad, it is those right next to us who we will have to turn to for support, and vice versa. Naomi Klein reflects on the dangers of individualization in her book Doppelganger, saying: “If our situation seems uniquely challenging (and on bad days, borderline hopeless), it likely has to do with how much we have come to expect from our individual selves combined with the brokenness of structures—trade unions, close-knit neighborhoods, functioning local media, and so on—that once made it easier to do things together. It’s our fragmentation that daunts us, as much as the challenges themselves.”

While encouraging socialization through consoles will never fix the systemic issues at play that cause loneliness and separation during tumultuous times, it is one way that gaming can motivate people to find one another through their love of a shared digital experience. StreetPass and LAN parties are just a few examples of how games can inspire excitement over the fact that we’re not alone. I only hope we can revisit these attempts and find more ways to connect as the future grows more uncertain with each passing day.

Farouk Kannout is a Chicago-based writer and cultural critic who loves writing about games, film/tv, and how we make meaning from culture broadly. You can find him at @faroukk.bsky.social.