A lot happened in 2004. George W. Bush won his second election and returned to the White House, a certain Mark Zuckerberg launched a website called Facebook, and Dreamworks released the cinematic masterpiece that is Shrek 2. If all this was not enough, after the success of the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo released its fresh, creative handheld, which caused a wave of shock in the gaming world and huge profits for the Japanese giant. Yes, we are talking about Nintendo DS.
Even with all the hype surrounding the imminent release of the Nintendo Switch 2, it’s challenging to explain just how invigorating the launch of the DS was for someone who wasn’t there. It’s almost as challenging to imagine how the company would handle releasing a fresh console in a foreign form and a launch title that was originally released a decade earlier. Yet that’s exactly what Nintendo did when it introduced clamshell bliss to the world with Super Mario 64 DS.
As a concept, the Nintendo DS dared to dream. While the idea of a clamshell gaming device wasn’t entirely fresh, thanks to the introduction of the Game Boy Advance SP years earlier, the DS’s dual screens were a revelation. It took the developers a while to figure out how to best utilize Nintendo’s innovations, but once they did, it was a game changer. Oh, and it had a touchscreen. In the post-iPhone era, this doesn’t seem like a gigantic deal, but at the time it was seen as a boundary-pushing design decision.
It was also a risk, but a risk that paid off for Nintendo, selling well over two million units in its first year. The final tally after all DS models ceased production in 2014 was over 150 million, making it the second best-selling console of all time after the PlayStation 2. There is a chance that the Switch could overtake the DS in the coming months, provided Nintendo can move another eight million units, but that doesn’t diminish how impressive this retro handheld’s sales are to this day.
When it comes to invigorating titles, the DS has had no shortage of fresh games from all of Nintendo’s biggest franchises, including Mario, Metroid, and Zelda. It was also a particularly busy time for fans of Pokémon games. Not only did we get games from the main series like Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, Black, and White, but also things like Pokémon Ranger and Pokémon Dash. I’m highlighting Ranger because it’s a great example of a game that simply wouldn’t work on any other console due to its reliance on dual screen mechanics and touch controls, but also because in my opinion it’s one of the best DS games ever was.
We can’t talk about Nintendo DS without PictoChat. This LAN chat feature seems quite straightforward now, but back then it was a joy. How else could you curse yourself and your friends, siblings, or anyone else in the company of adults? This was before the age of digital censorship and there was nothing Nintendo could do to stop me from using my DS as a profanity machine.
But the real secret to the DS’s success is that it didn’t just attract people who someone in 2004 might have called “gamers” or those who already preached at the Nintendo church. The DS was for everyone and had a diverse selection of games, from the Rockstar exclusive Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars to the hit pet simulator Nintendogs. Not to mention things like Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain?, which in my house is the first game my mother ever played that wasn’t set in an arcade, and My Quit Smoking Coach: Allen Carr’s The basic way. The latter speaks for itself.
Yes, the Nintendo DS was for everyone. Looking back, it seems that Nintendo was aware of how many other figures in the gaming industry, such as Sony and Microsoft, were targeting their consoles primarily at teenage boys and recognized that this left a huge portion of the population up for grabs. The Xbox had Halo, of course, but the DS had a cooking mom and Professor Layton. I would like to see a game crossover now.
Nintendo’s one-size-fits-all approach helped the company continue its early 2000s streak with the release of the Wii console and later the Nintendo Switch. Of course, the Switch was helped a bit by the coincidence that Animal Crossing: New Horizons came out literally days before much of the world went into Covid-19-enforced lockdown, but this family gaming marketing plan is still going powerful, as evidenced by the adorable ads Switch system that you’ve probably seen countless times in recent years.
Still, it’s safe and sound to say that the DS had its flaws. The stylus was basic to lose, even with its own dedicated slot on the side of the device. While I’m not cynical enough to suggest that Nintendo intentionally made it easier to lose the stylus, I can only guess how much the brand made on replacements, not to mention the countless knockoffs that offered their own, often cheaper styluses.
The backlit screens were quite dim, even at the highest possible brightness. While the original Game Boy was hard to play in the gloomy, the DS was hard to play in the lithe, especially if you were in direct sunlight. Just ask my parents, who took me on vacation to sunnier climes, so I could play Mario Kart DS under the beach towel shelter I built. I’m sorry again, mom.
Still, despite these flaws, we didn’t know anything better at the time, which made the DS even more special. It looked like something from the future, offered a gaming experience unlike anything else on the market, and most importantly, it was affordable. In today’s money, the DS’ original starting price of $149.99 is equivalent to about $250. Over time, it became even cheaper and by the end of 2005 you could buy it for $130, which is roughly $220 today. That’s significantly cheaper than Nintendo’s fixed price of $299.99 for the Switch.
I think the legacy of the DS is also quite evident in how Nintendo was reluctant to abandon the console for a long time. Instead we got DS Lite, DSi and DSI XL. This was before Nintendo tried to innovate once again with the 3DS, which sold only half as many copies as the original handheld console. I wonder if, as fate would have it, if the Switch hadn’t been a success, Nintendo might have continued the DS brand well into the future.
As someone who writes a lot about smartphones, it’s also worth noting how Android brands have embraced the stylus over the years. One of this year’s best Android phones, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, comes with a stylus. Thinking back to the pre-DS days, I don’t recall any truly mainstream hardware that came with a petite plastic pen, and while it’s still not common, I think the nostalgia around the DS is certainly a solid reason for brands to occasionally offer them along with it. with news.
On the topic of mobile phones, many writers and journalists have suggested that the DS effectively prepared the market for the iPhone, and I think that’s a fair point. One of the most popular iPhone games of all time, Candy Crush looks and feels like many DS match-three puzzle games, thanks to its colorful design, straightforward mechanics, and touchscreen controls.
Even in terms of design, the DS was a mirror to a world that didn’t rely solely on buttons, and it was Apple that took the idea of a touchscreen device to what now seems a natural conclusion. Sure, it sucked for brands like Blackberry, but now almost every phone looks the same with a huge glass panel on the front, as the fresh iPhone 16 still proves.
So what is the most essential legacy of the Nintendo DS? Honestly, it’s challenging to say. The console dominated the handheld market so much that only Sony provided a solid challenge, and yet the sales figures of both the PSP and PS Vita pale in comparison, with neither handheld exceeding the 100 million units sold mark. It can also be argued that the DS helped maintain Nintendo’s position while the GameCube struggled to compete with the Xbox and PlayStation 2, which allowed the brand to devote the time it needed to perfect the Nintendo Wii, which, as you probably know, was also a huge success, even without advertising from Beyonce in the main role.
I think the most essential conclusion that can be drawn from the success and aftermath of the DS is that it validated Nintendo’s willingness to innovate and go against the grain. If the DS hadn’t become one of the best handheld gaming consoles of all time, or hadn’t had as lukewarm a life cycle as the GameCube, Nintendo might have been tempted to become like Microsoft and Sony and adapt to become just another console brand. Whether the ever-relentless gaming giant would succumb to that temptation is another question.
Of course, we can’t say how this could have turned out, but there could be a universe in which everything from Pokémon Ranger to Cooking Mama to Wii Sports Resort and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe didn’t exist. I look at my DS, half broken, with its legendary history of PictoChat profanity and Animal Crossing: Wild World clock tampering, and I thank God and the slow and legendary Satoru Iwata that I didn’t end up there.
