A new tool has been created which allows you to broadcast your legitimate 3DS games from your 3DS system to your PC and play them via emulation.
"Artic Base is a tool for broadcasting games from your 3DS to a compatible emulator," reads the project's GitHub page. "This allows playing your physical or digital games on an emulator without having to dump them."
Via the Artic Base Server – a Luma3DS 3GX plugin – 3DS users can broadcast their digital or physical 3DS games to an emulator, like Citra. "This works by forwarding the filesystem requests from the emulator to the console." A hacked 3DS running Luma3DS is required.
This approach might seem a little leftfield, but it offers several advantages over playing your 3DS games on a real 3DS console. For example, it's possible to bump up the resolution of the games and use wireless controllers – and, if you have a faulty 3DS, it could present a viable means of reviving it and making use of your existing collection of games.
Furthermore, you can play your games using Artic Base and then, when you're done playing, take your 3DS on the road and pick up where you left off, Switch-style – all thanks to the automatic syncing of save data.
The downside is that you lose the 3D effect (obviously), and load times are currently longer than they are on real hardware. You'll also need to ensure a strong and constant wireless connection between your 3DS and your computer.
This project clearly has a lot of promise; let us know what you think by posting a comment.