So I decided to play some Animal Crossing: New Leaf on my Cosmo Black 3DS. After some time, the analog controls got a little jerky. For example, if I'm holding the circle pad right, I move it to the SW side (the lower right corner), my character slows down briefly, and then goes back to normal speed. I thought it would just need to be recalibrated.
After heading to the system settings and performing the circle pad calibration utility, I found out that up, down, left and right movements registered correctly, but diagonal movements wouldn't. Moving the circle pad in those directions would cause a little loop around the green circles. It's hard to describe exactly how it does this. Rotating the circle pad rapidly causes jerky movements. This circle pad is moving smoothly, but something's not right inside. I recalibrated several times, and it still won't get calibrated properly. This 3DS has only been dropped once. Other than that, nothing else has been abused, and I received this system for my birthday in July 2011. Having had it for nearly 3 years, it's well out of its 1 year warranty.
I went onto the support webpage, and found out that a repair costs $85.00! So, should I send in my 3DS for repair, or upgrade to a 3DS XL?
What do you guys think?