I've been a proud owner of my standard red 3DS since 2011, and haven't had many problems. Until now.
Nearly a month ago after I purchased and played Super Smash Bros. for the 3DS, my 3DS starting becoming defective. The charging light won't go away, and when it's nearly full, it starts flickering annoyingly, the brightness changing from dim to bright, which is pretty distracting.As of today, it is now stuck on a red light--it's been stuck on a red light for nearly 3 hours now--and what's even weirder is that it starts flashing immediately whenever I take it off of the charger. This is becoming a problem, as I cannot enjoy playing my 3DS games for long without fooling with my system, and it may risk my data, because I have no idea if it will just shut off when I'm saving something; thathas been a fear of mine recently. My brother also had a defective 3DS and it had developed problems similar to mine, but only much worse. His solution was buying a 3DS XL; I might have to buy one, too. However, I'm praying that mine doesn't go down that road. 
My theory is that Smash Bros. 3DS may have somehow caused this little problem, because I haven't had this kind of problem before I played the game. It also started turning to a red light quicker when playing Smash Bros. 3DS.
Any help would be much appreciated. 