news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

Gu Ke, if you are not a Xiaohongshu user, it may be difficult to understand what this word means.

A thick stack of colorful stickers are carefully decorated on the plastic back panel with tweezers, cut into suitable shapes, and then stuffed into the transparent shell of the handheld game console. This way of decorating the game console is called Gu Ke.

The game consoles created by different authors are varied, but they also have common features.

They all have a unified style: ornate, complex, and full of Y2K flavor.

The main content is animation elements.

And, the extremely high appearance rate of 3DS.

Last summer, my niece said she wanted to buy a 3DS. I was a little confused: it was 2023, and even the performance of NS was criticized. Why would a high school girl want an "antique" that has been on the market for more than ten years and has been out of production for three or four years?

Later, I gave her an NS and a bunch of game cartridges, but she didn't even open them a few times.

It wasn't until this summer vacation when I bought her a 3DS that she immediately ordered a bunch of stickers on Taobao. Then I realized that she bought the 3DS for other reasons. She just liked its flip-top design, which allowed for more space for decoration.

3DS has been popular on Xiaohongshu for a long time. If we expand the scope further, it is not limited to 3DS. Many Xiaohongshu users also like to buy some NDSL, PSP, and PSV from the second-hand market. In short, after getting these old handheld game consoles that have been discontinued, they put pain stickers, add protective cases, hang small accessories, take photos and write notes, and spend more time decorating the machine than playing games.

There are many players on Xiaohongshu who like the appearance of old handheld game consoles and buy them as "fashion items". Content showing the collection of various colors, limited models, and pain shells is also very popular.

My niece said about this process, "It's a kind of fun that goes beyond your (traditional gamers) understanding." This is indeed the case: I gave her the NS last year, and she only shared the joy of finishing "Jack and Jane" with me once in a year. But since she got the 3DS, she has sent me photos of new Grunt Shells almost every few days - for her, the playability and durability of "Grunt Shells" obviously exceeds that of video games.

I know that there are definitely many traditional gamers who don’t quite understand this. Under the notes on Xiaohongshu introducing and recommending 3DS, some people think that they are just trying to attract attention by buying a handheld game console because they don’t play games, and that buying old machines at high prices disrupts the order of the second-hand trading market.

The white handheld game console that is popular on Xiaohongshu has indeed increased in price

These players may not fit the traditional player profile, but they are not that different. Just like many traditional players, who also have limited controllers and physical games on the wall, but actually shut down electronically as soon as they turn on the game console, the game console is not only a game launcher, but also an object to fill life.

Even games can be like this. One of my colleagues is keen on configuring mods for games such as "The Elder Scrolls 5", "Fallout" and "Rimworld". He spends dozens of hours on each modification, but after the modifications are perfect and there are no errors, he loses interest in playing.

Just because you like to decorate your machine doesn't mean you don't play games.

Old handheld game consoles provide a lot of cracked content. When players receive the game consoles and burning cards, many games are already installed. Players who get the machines often don’t know these games, but this allows them to try various games more casually without preconceived ideas. On Xiaohongshu, you can often see a lot of sharing content about unpopular games.

The retro trend of old consoles has also benefited more hardcore players. In recent years, many unpopular 3DS games that were once shelved for Chinese translation have reorganized Chinese translation teams and completed Chinese translation through crowdfunding.

Xiaohongshu is not a platform dedicated to exchanging ideas about games, but now there is a spontaneous community of old handheld game consoles on it, with a large number of young members. These players may not know about mainstream game forums, but are used to seeking purchase advice, posting game impressions, and sharing decoration experiences on Xiaohongshu, all naturally.

This positive atmosphere has helped many people open the door to the world of games. Whether these players continue to move forward, explore the world in depth, or one day the tide of 3DS and Gu Ke finally recedes, I think it will not affect their initial good impression of the game.

Finally, as a side note, I recently played "Zero Escape" on Steam. After hearing about it, my niece also found this game on 3DS (of course, the 3DS native version is better than the Steam version) and played with me. I made rapid progress, but she just reached the ending of the first part a few days ago (there are three parts in total).

She definitely won't be able to complete the game before school starts, but even if she never plays Zero Escape again, no longer likes GOOGLE, or ever turns on this game console, the shock that the game brought her this summer will never fade.

I'm so glad I bought her a 3DS this summer.