The Louvre Is Saying Goodbye to Its Nintendo 3DS Tour Guides

One of the most bizarre but charming cultural crossovers has officially come to an end. Since 2012, and for only €6, visitors of the world-famous art museum could rent a Nintendo 3DS loaded with an app that helped visitors navigate the museum’s halls. The museum will no longer use the handheld console for its guided tours beginning later this year.

Developed by Nintendo and headed by company legend Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of the Mario, Donkey Kong, and Zelda franchises, the app was no change from the hastily thrown-together novelty. It had geolocation to track your position, more than 30 hours of commentary, and 3D models of iconic works, all tucked into a clamshell handheld. If you couldn’t make it to Paris, Nintendo released Nintendo 3DS Guide: Louvre on the eShop in 2013, so you could wander the halls from your couch an ocean away.

Nintendo was so excited by the project that on November 27, 2013, they released a 12 and a half minute Nintendo Direct entirely dedicated to its Louvre map app. Miyamoto and then-president Satoru Iwata wandered the halls of the Louvre with only a 3DS in hand guiding them through the museum, all the while filling the video with the kind of magic that only a dad proudly showing off something they made can provide.

But in just a few short months, the Louvre’s 3DS guides will be retired. No one knows what will replace it, but a statement published on the Louvre website states that something will.

“The New Nintendo 3DS console audio guides will go out of operation in September 2025, to be replaced by a new system,” it reads.

Maybe an entirely updated experience using the upcoming Switch 2? That would make too much sense.