New 3DS loses paint

Serguei2 · July 6, 2019

I was playing on my New 3DS when my hands were stained of paint.

My New 3DS starts losing its paint.

In comparaison, my original Gameboy still has good shapes, no paint lost.

Any advices to prevent more damages and restore with original paint?

spacecadet · July 7, 2019

The original GameBoy isn't painted; that's the color of the plastic. A lot of modern systems aren't painted either; I'd say it's still the exception, and usually limited to the shiny finish funky color stuff like this. But anything that's basic black, white or beige is usually just dyed plastic.

I think the only thing you could do to prevent more damage is to use a skin or a case (one that lets you play while the system's in it). You just have to make sure it covers everything, because this kind of paint has the potential to flake or rub off anywhere it's exposed.

Not sure how you could restore the original paint; it would be difficult. You're probably not going to match the original color even if you could do like an automotive-style patch touchup. Only Nintendo probably even knows what that actual color is, and for all anyone knows they had it formulated especially for them.

If it's still under warranty, you could try sending it in to Nintendo. They probably can't repair it either, but they'd probably have to replace it in that case.

If you want to avoid this in the future, just avoid painted systems like this, or make sure you case them up as soon as you buy them. There are some painted handhelds that also seem to have a super-thick poly finish on them to protect the paint, but then others are like this. You can usually tell even in pics when a system is "naked" and doesn't really have a protective finish on it. Those are likely to have paint that rubs or flakes off.