What can be said about this VERY unique system, some might say that there will be no other system like it (me, I’m saying it), the fact that it had two screens was really innovative for the time, and something that was never replicated since. So, in this article, I’ll tell you why the DS is my favorite console and explain to you why it’s concept transcends time.
The development for the DS started around 2002, following a proof of concept by the at the time president of Nintendo, Hiroshi Yamauchi, wanting to create a dual-screened console, using as inspiration the clam shell design of the Gameboy Advance SP, and wanting to make the console innovative for its time, expressing the desire to put Nintendo back on the map as the forefront of innovation that they have lost to time due to playing it safe in the years prior to it, a philosophy they maintain even nowadays (for the better or the worst). In May 2004, at E3 2004, the console in its prototype form was shown for the whole world to see, and the person to present it to the eyes of the public was no other than Reggie Fils-Aimé, he wasn’t even the president of Nintendo of America at the time, but he was excited to show the world what they have been working for 2 years, later on July 28, 2004, they revealed a sleeker, more refined design than the one shown at E3 that year. It’s worth mentioning that Hiroshi Yamauchi made a statement during the time frame that can be translated from Japanese as: "If the DS succeeds, we will rise to heaven, but if it fails we will sink to hell.” And succeed it did… Way more than Nintendo could have hoped for.
The Nintendo DS launched first on America, something before never seen from a Japanese product, on November 21, 2004, on the other hand the console was launched in Japan on December 2. It was launched with little to none fuzz on Japan due to cold weather, some sources say.
By the end of the year, the console would sell 2.84 million worldwide, and by the end of 2005 it would sell 14.43 million worldwide, and by the end of the console’s life span, in 2013, it sold a whopping 153.98! (If we count all the DS models and revisions through the years).
But how was the DS? Well, see it for yourself!
It’s fucking ugly! I have yet to meet someone that likes the original DS design, you can say it’s nostalgic and even I would probably own one if I could get it for a good price, but all in all it’s ugly as fuck. Even Nintendo knew that was such a shit design, that 2 years later, they released *another* model for the DS, the Nintendo DS Lite
What is up with Nintendo releasing Lite versions of their consoles that are SO MUCH better than the original release? The DS Lite is an incredible update to the original DS, I have never seen such a glow-up from a console before. It looked better, it felt better, had brighter, better screens and a better battery life span, and best of all, it was cheaper! For some reason, the DS Lite was US$129.99 while the OG was US$149.99, 20 bucks less and that made a huge difference back in the 2000s (hell it makes more of a difference nowadays). But a console that was a direct update from its original being cheaper? That was unheard of, and might I say, it revamped the console to the public. Ok but what about the other ones? The DSi and DSi XL? Well personally, I had very few interactions with it, considering that I only had the DS Lite before getting a 3DS, but it is worth mentioning that it was the next logical step for the DS family line, it introduced 3 cameras, one on the front, two in the back, and a proper OS and Live Area for easy access to multiple games, oh and how could I forget, the very first iteration of the eShop (it wasn’t called the eShop back then, but it was a precursor to it), and the very weird decision to remove the bottom pack, which allowed to play GBA games natively. Overall, two great consoles that added a lot, but removed a crucial feature that offered GBA owners and incentive to buy the DS, but I guess they could settle for the DS Lite, I sure did since, personally, I didn’t see too much value into the DSi.
The DS’s design resembles the Game & Watch multi-screen games, like the old Donkey Kong and Zelda. It’s button layout was the basic one we have nowadays for every controller, but back then it was rare to have a full 6 button layout on a handheld (four lettered face buttons and two shoulder ones), it also had stereo speakers, a first for a Nintendo handheld, and a microphone located near the power button that functioned as a method for chatting online with other players, or its more common usage, for gameplay sensitive context. And now, we arrive at the differential of the DS: its two screens.
So far through this article, I have been objective about the DS, things about its release, design, model differences etc. But I feel like we have crossed a point where things get a little more abstract, since I’d like to present the nature of the console it will be hard to not discuss the things that I PERSONALLY like about the console as a whole, having said that allow me to present to you the genius of a console dedicated to having two distinct screens that work in tandem with the games.
The concept of having two screens that work together at the same time on a system was beyond revolutionary, it’s a concept that we can see nowadays with the ever-increasing gaming setups with two monitors, “why does so many people prefer two monitors?” I used to think when looking at these setups, thinking it was a bit overkill to have this much access to visual information… But then it hit me, “visual information”, of course! You can have one display be your active workspace while the other acts as a more passive source of information, instead of tabbing in and out of different pages on your computer, you can divide the attention of information between the two screens, not needing extra button presses to cycle through information. And that, ladies and gentlemen, that is what made the DS for me.
The HUD (Heads Up Display) has become the number one enemy of many gamers in modern times, why is it so intrusive? Do we need this much information at the given time? Why do I have a Piss-o-Meter? Jokes aside, modern gaming has “solved” the problem by giving us all we need right in front of us, so we can’t complain about not understanding game mechanics… Right? Well… I will argue that this was an issue that was solved with the DS, no I’m not kidding, let me explain. Many will say that the purpose of the bottom screen on the DS was purely for touch controls and that was the whole gimmick of the DS, I disagree since in many games we can se that the bottom screen was used for other, less interactable features, but helpful nonetheless, please take a look at the following examples: (examples)
See how the game Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, is played primally on the bottom screen, leaving the top screen for exclusive usage for the map, and if you press the select button, it changes to the enemy stats that you are fighting against. Many will say “Ok that’s fine, but it could just be an option on the game’s menu” and that’s completely valid, but I would like to exercise a thought process here. Here is what would happen in a game with no dedicated map screen, “Damn, where am I?” > Opens the menu > Cycles to “Map” option > Checks you position > Close the menu (sometimes you have to back out all the way to close it) > Resume gameplay. Now let’s look at the example given previously, “Damn, where am I?” > Look at top screen > Check your position > Look down again > Resume Gameplay. Waaaaaay less steps for the same result.
I would like to call this example the “Static Display” given that it requires minimal to none input from the player for ease of access to the map or other features the game might provide.
Another example would be this:
In Mega Man Battle Network 5: Double Team, we have a more tact approach for the bottom scree, this time the action is on the top screen, while using the bottom screen for easy to access information, and on top of that some extras that are exclusive to this version of the game. You can modify your folders on the bottom screen, dragging and placing them on your active battle hand, and while outside of combat you have a little Mega Man.EXE companion to help you through some of the real-world segments, isn’t it nice?
I would call this “Dynamic Display” since it does require input from the player, but it’s not active in-gameplay input, the game won’t ask you to finger the bottom screen in the middle of gameplay.
And for the last example, I’ll give you a game that I played last year that perfectly utilizes the bottom screen to the fullest:
This game is awesome, it’s janky as hell, but it’s soooooo much fun. Except from the movement that you still use the D-Pad for, all the actions of the mechas are done utilizing the Fisher Price-esque control panel. Pull a lever, you move the arms. Pull a trigger, you shoot its gun. Push a button, and it’ll drop its bombs. This game is just pure kinetic fun, pressing buttons and figuring out what each lever and slider does on the machine, no mecha is like the other so you have to try them all to figure out what they do and specialize at.
This one is pretty obvious, I would call it “Active Display” since you need to interact with both the bottom and top screens to move around and use your mech’s abilities in game, you can’t opt to use one screen over the other.
And that about wraps it up for MY thoughts on it… But we are not done yet, for you see I’m not the only one that owned the console, well I’m pretty sure YOU also did, dear reader! (I’m banking on the fact you did) So that’s why I asked you all on the forums about it, and you all have been heard!
Here is what RGT thinks about the DS:
Exactly what I said during my article, I wrote half of it before having the Ideia of featuring other's comments on it, interesting how some reached the same conclusion.
Very interesting take, I prefer my New 3DS XL over the older DS family line so I would never sell it, but everyone has different needs and yours was simples. Without a doubt, the multi-media aspect of it was really cool, like I mentioned earlier in the article the DSi was the prototype for the future 3DS OS, much more robust than the DSi.
That's one of my main gripes with the bigger models... I might be tall (6'2 feet, 1,90 meters) and my hands feel more confortable on a bigger console, but due to it having a off-center point of mass, playing it on the bed with my body to the side does strain my hands a little more than usual, since the top screen lever motions the rest of the console down with it.
Such is the magic of the earlier models, the fact that you had a whole new library along side the new releases for the DS, it made it a power house not only for the handheld side of gaming, but in general. I'm glad you felt the joy of using the whole capacity of the DS, not many games use everything it had but Another Code was one of the few games that hit it out of the park.
Yeah... Very strange decision on their part, I don't know if it's because the newer technology entered into conflict with the older GBA hardware, or they sacrifised the port for newer features or what not, real punch in the gut for the people that still had their GBA games and wanted to wait it out to see what else big N was cooking before commiting to the console.
Amen brother. I did mention it was about the DS, but there where no restrictions to talk about the 3DS whatsoever so I'm glad some still touched some of it's features in the thread, and while yes the 3DS wasn't as innovative as the DS, it was the much needed next step into the power department, giving us much better 3D models over the janky DS ones from most 3D games it had. (Not even Mario 64 DS was safe from this)
A lot of people called the DS a "gimmick" and while yes it had it's moments of terrible controls for the sake of a gimmick, I would say that 90% of it's games had great gimmicks that enchanced the gameplay, hell we have WarioWare Touched, a game that has to be entirely played with touch controls.
Due to the unorthodox nature of the DS, many of it's games where developed with it's uninque features in mind, they play fantastic on original hardware, but any attempt to replicate it on a hardware that doesn't even have a second screen, it completly falls apart. You did mention TWEWY, and even though it has a re-release that fixes those issues, it's not the same, the combat was too watered down or even reformulated to make it work on modern consoles, which honestly it's fine if it means other can have a chance to play it.
I also think that the older and smaller models for the DS where great for portability, the fact that you could fold it and it would have the lenght of a modern day phone was amazing for the time, made it perfect to shove it inside your pack and carry it around school or work.
And speaking of phones, it is still lighter than most modern day phones! I don't know about you fellas, but I can't play mobile games, not because they are bad, but because I could be playing something else on my DS lol.
That's another point, the values for DS in some contries have gone down since they are no longer the hottest item, so if you're interested in getting one after reading this article the best time would be now, before the scalpers find them and re-sell them for 20x their original price.
This was a sentiment echoed by many. A lot still felt that the DS family system was canned too soon, since it was soo unique and there was still room for growth, maybe making the screen a little bigger? Maybe making them both OLED? Maybe even making the CPU better, alloweing it to run stronger and better games, who knows, all I got to say is that Big N really dropped the ball by... Dropping the DS too early.
Absolutly. There are older gamers than me in these forums so they grew up on the SNES, N64 and GC era of gaming and can challenge both our statements, but I can say that the ammount of variety the DS had was, and still is, unparalleled than most modern and old-schooled gaming consoles, the DS literally had it all.
(P.s. The Wii home menu is still a vibe, I loved the little animation each game had before selecting it)
And so, I would like to end this section with these two comments that have been made in the thread, the latter a response to the former so they compliment each other.
Oof! You guys like to write! More than me even. Guess this is the end of the article, nothing else to be said that haven't been said by me or the others, but I guess there are some that want to give their 2 cents after reading all of this, so type down bellow and give us your take on the DS, and if you want to see more opinions on this console, check out my original thread.
Thank you very much, and take care!
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