It's been slightly over a year since I jailbroke my 3DS. At the time, I'd considered that the system I really wanted to hack was my 2DS, which I got in 2014 because I was convinced that the reason I wasn't playing my 3DS games was that museum piece-like shiny aspect to the 3DS, where the 2DS was built more like a Game Boy Advance. Of course, the reason I wasn't playing 3DS turned out to be that depression hadn't only kicked my ass but was holding me in a full-nelson, and the 2DS suffered mostly the same fate as the 3DS before it, wasting away on my closet shelf. In December 2023, I decided to test the methodology by hacking my 3DS first because, at the time, I didn't care about it as much as the 2DS. When it worked though, I realised that the 2DS was going to require too many special considerations for taking places. I couldn't put it in my Pouch of Unsmart Technology because of its large slate design, whereas the 3DS could fold and I even had a hardcase for it. All things considered, my 3DS was better, so I never got round to jailbreaking my 2DS.
...Until last night.
I seem to recall my 3DS taking less effort to crack than the 2DS, but then it had an earlier firmware revision, from the time when Nintendo were still trying to work out how to prevent people doing what I did. Don't get me wrong, the jailbreak did work, it just took a couple extra steps. You can jailbreak any one of the Nintendo 3DS systems; from the launch-day shiny cyan 3DS on up to the New 2DS XL; with any firmware version, even the surprise patch Nintendo foisted on everyone the same month they shut down the eShop that was supposed to prevent hacking and brick systems that had been hacked. It didn't take the community very long to figure out what Nintendo did and worked around it, unbricking everyone's systems and ensuring future generations can hack their 3DSes.
Well, this begs the question, what am I going to do with a jailbroken 3DS and 2DS? I don't know. I've been considering installing the 15 essential 3DS games and the whole spate of game system emulators and selling it on Craigslist for $99, but I've never had much luck selling on there. Out of the 10 or so items I've ever tried to sell on Craigslist, I only ever sold my old A-frame easel. Maybe I just wasn't selling the right stuff? Whatever. Not talking about that.
So, I said it took a couple more steps to jailbreak the 2DS, what did I mean? I don't actually know. I'm going through the procedure of hacking my 3DS in my head right now and I'm coming up with a process that has about the same number of steps. In my 3DS's case, I hacked in through the sound player, so I needed the Soundhack file. On my 2DS, I hacked in through the internet browser, so I needed a patch file. Otherwise, the same amount of files and time were required to complete the hack. Maybe it just seemed like a longer time because I let the 2DS charge completely before hacking, whereas I charged the 3DS at the same time I hacked it. From a completely dead battery that hasn't held a charge in about 11 years, it took about 4 hours to get back to 100%. And yes, I checked and the battery hasn't become a spicy balloon, nor is it showing signs of becoming one.