I remember when the 3DS was region locked (cartridges can only be read if the console is bought in the same country those games are from) meaning it’s a headache having to switch between two variants of the handheld (I had a Japanese 3DS XL and an American 3DS regular back then, alternating on each one depending on which game I wanted to play). The switch alleviated this by making the cartridges / console region free.
It was that, or what I did was have consoles from the other regions + stepdown power converters as needed.