It was 20 years ago. While we still had PlayStation 2s, GameCubes and/or first generation Xboxes connected to CRT TVs in our living rooms, Nintendo was (finally!) launching a real successor to its Game Boy portable console. While the GBA SP has been in stores for a little over a year, the Japanese giant is marketing its brand new machine: the DS. A portable clamshell console (like the GBA SP), but with increased power and above all, operation with two screens (DS for Dual Screen), including one touchscreen. “It’s going to be a hit” was what people said in specialized stores, and we have to admit that the box was monumental.
Because we haven’t always had a 4K screen in front of our eyes, an OLED HDR smartphone in our hand and wireless controllers on our knees, PasTech offers you a refreshing little return to the past, to (re) discovery of certain emblematic products which have made (or not) the history of tech. So we say 5, 4, 3, 0, and then bam, PasTech!
Nintendo DS, or after Game Boy
While we recently looked back on the 25th anniversary of the SEGA Dreamcast in France, it is another anniversary that we are celebrating at the end of the year 2024. For many players, the Nintendo DS is a small revolution, like a sort of video game UFO launched on the video game market, then (already) in search of superpower.
Indeed, at the beginning of the 2000s on the video game market, there was already a race for pixels, but with its DS, Nintendo decided to play another card, that of accessibility. Furthermore, the Nintendo DS also plays the continuity card, by being backwards compatible with Game Boy Advance cartridges. This allows players to resell their GBA (to buy the DS) while keeping their favorite games.
For the record, it was the United States that had the first to discover the Nintendo DS on November 21, 2004, before Japan on December 2 of the same year. In Europe, the Nintendo DS will point the tip of its stylus on March 11, 2005. From its launch, the Nintendo DS enjoyed enormous success, despite a rather unsightly “Tank” design, and a backlight that was questionable to say the least.
But what does the bottle matter as long as we get drunk, and as will be the case later with its Wii, the target targeted by the Japanese giant is not only the inveterate gamer, but also the occasional player, the general public, the one who will marvel at the touch screen of the console, at the possibilities offered by PictoChat, at this microphone into which we will be asked to breathe in certain games, and later at the Program Brain Training by Dr. Kawashima or Nintendogs.
With its DS, Nintendo also attracts newbies… and seniors!
Better yet, with its Nintendo DS, the Japanese giant manages to attract the favor of a whole new audience: seniors. The height of paroxysm, at the time, it became entirely possible to offer a Nintendo DS to your parents or grandparents, something still unthinkable at the time of the Super Nintendo, Game Boy and other Mega Drives.
Over the months, the Nintendo DS has become the darling of developers, and many are offering games very far from Super Mario, Starwing and other Zeldas. The Nintendo DS is accessible to everyone, and it allows you to enjoy games based on crosswords, Suodokus, board games… You will even be entitled to yoga, virtual tours or even Eye Gym. To tell the truth, we had a bit of everything and anything on Nintendo DS, each publisher trying to grab (more or less conscientiously) the attention of the many owners of the machine, eager for new experiences.
Note that the Nintendo DS was launched around ten days before a rival of choice in Japan, namely the Sony PSP. The small PlayStation Portable indeed arrived on December 12, 2004 in Japan, but despite incredible power and a real technological demonstration from Sony, the Nintendo DS crushed its rival, just as the outdated Game Boy had crushed the very colorful Game Gear from SEGA a few years ago.
Nintendo obliges, the DS does not ignore the players, the real ones, those who want to sink their teeth into the licenses of the Japanese giant. Also, at its launch, the Nintendo DS was accompanied by a certain Super Mario 64 DS, a redesign of the Nintendo 64 episode, transposed onto the machine’s two screens. Added to this are games that take full advantage of the console’s capabilities, such as WarioWare: Touched or Project Rub, without forgetting the very popular Zoo Keeper.
Suffice to say that with its Nintendo DS which is aimed at all ages, Nintendo will cast a very (very) wide net. Obviously, the console will benefit from its share of Pokémon, without forgetting a memorable revival of the Mario saga with NEW Super Mario Bros., Metroid or even two tactile opus from The Legend of Zelda saga.
Mario Kart will also arrive in 2005, allowing (like other games) to enjoy the joys of wireless multiplayer with a single cartridge. Also, like the Game Boy before it, the Nintendo DS is not zoned. This allows players to import game cartridges from any region of the world, to play them on their machine, perfect in particular for testing certain titles exclusive to Japan, on a Nintendo DS purchased in France.
In addition to in-house licenses, the Nintendo DS will attract the favor of many developers, who will be keen to launch their franchises on the dual-screen console, quickly adopted by millions of players (and therefore potential customers). We will thus find games branded Castlevania, but also a new game from the GTA franchise (Chinatown Wars), without forgetting the Phoenix Wright license from Capcom, which will also bring the first Resident Evil to the Nintendo console. The machine will also host a new game from the Ninja Gaiden franchise and has a whole catalog of “new” experiences.
#DidYouKnow In the 2000s, many Nintendo DS games had two-word subtitles, with the initials… D and S 😁
Do you know any others? 😊#RETROGAMING #Nintendo #NintendoDS pic.twitter.com/UanA5hSGe3
— Stéphane Ficca (@StephaneFicca) November 28, 2021
In this regard, have you already noticed that many games launched on Nintendo DS had a subtitle such as Dragon Sword for Ninja Gaiden, Deadly Silence for Resident Evil, Dual Strike for Advance Wars, Dark Souls for Bleach, Dawn of Sorrow for Castlevania, Dual Sympathy for FullMetal Alchemist, Dust Strikers for Guilty Gear… Good. Now pay close attention to the first letter of each word in the different subtitles… Got it?
The DS Lite and DSi to continue the legacy
Nintendo DS sales quickly soared, and Nintendo refined the formula to launch a brand new model in 2006: the DS Lite. It is the same machine, still allowing you to play DS and GBA games, but this time with a very modern design, a more compact size, with even a borderline high-end side (something quite rare for a product Nintendo at the time), and a reworked backlight, with four levels available. New success for Nintendo, which not only attracts new customers, but also allows many owners of the DS Tank (which then passes for a prototype) to migrate happily to this new model.
Launched in early summer 2006, the Nintendo DS Lite enjoyed monumental success. So much so that at the time, a few weeks before Christmas, the video game stores in Lyon (where I worked) had no over-the-counter stock. Each store had a vast reservations list, with customers called in dribs and drabs based on deliveries. Some customers do not hesitate to travel long distances to get their hands on the machine, and I remember a customer living in Marseille, contacted in the morning to announce the availability of his machine, which he will come to collect in the afternoon, after having made the journey by car… only to buy this Nintendo DS Lite. Madness we tell you.
Two years later, Nintendo did it again, launching an improvement of the same DS Lite. This time, the Japanese giant is making more controversial choices. The design of the new console is a little less sexy, with a mast side that is not necessarily very pleasant. Furthermore, if the DSi introduces a small camera, it also draws a line under backward compatibility, by abandoning the GameBoy Advance port.
In total, it is estimated that more than 154 million Nintendo DS units have been sold worldwide, across all generations. As is the case today with its Nintendo Switch (on track to dislodge the Nintendo DS and even the 155 million sales of the PS2), the Japanese giant manages to install several consoles within the same household, each member of the same family sometimes having their own Nintendo DS.
On the video game side, NEW Super Mario Bros is in first position with more than 30.7 million cartridges sold. The two plumbers are ahead of Nintendogs and its 24 million sales, and return to third place with the 23.5 million sales of Mario Kart DS.
Among the machine’s best sellers, we also find the Dr. Kawashima games, but also the many Pokémon launched on the two-screen console, without forgetting games like English Training (to learn English), Gym des Yeux, to exercise and relax the peepers or La Maison du Style.
And you, do you still have your Nintendo DS?
