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Short story, the Nintendo DS succeeded in just about every way the Nintendo 64 faltered.
Long story, Nintendo got a little nervous about the rising development costs in games, because other developers were making bigger and better games appealing to a gradually narrowing audience. Now how much of that is true is debatable, but it can't be argued that Nintendo's steps to remedy this created an unbeatable counter to the PlayStation Portable.
Their first step was, instead of simply making "a more powerful Game Boy", trying something new with the system to alter the gameplay and get developers out of a rut. With the DS, the method was to add a touchscreen in between the d-pad and the buttons, while keeping the regular screen above it. The public prototype was codenamed the "Developer's System", or the "DS" for short (it was initially developed under the code name "Nitro" in-house; DS games still carry the "NTR" indexing code as a result, with the exception of games capable of using the DSi's additional features, which use "TWL" instead). But because of its two screens, the gaming press kept thinking it stood for "Dual Screen". Recognizing it was giving the system name recognition already, Nintendo made "DS" the official name.
When it was in development, Nintendo presented the device as a "third pillar" to complement the Game Cube and the Game Boy Advance, rather than claim that the DS was the latest iteration of the Game Boy hardware. There is some indication that this was a marketing ploy — Nintendo did not want to potentially tarnish the positive image of the much-beloved Game Boy line if the DS failed to live up to expectations. Unnecessary in retrospect, and it didn't stop people from calling it the "Game Boy DS" anyway.
The PDA-like touchscreen also provided a more "intuitive" interface for game development. Rather than pressing buttons that manipulated some object on the screen, the player could simply touch what they wanted to. This fell into a new strategy of Nintendo pursuing so-called "non-gamers": people who would normally not play games and might be intimidated by being confronted with an array of buttons and a d-pad. Nintendo went on to market the Wii this way as well. Besides, die-hard fanboys could take solace in the console's overall layout, which was a Shout-Out to Nintendo's original handheld product, the LCD-based Game and Watch.
And they did. Non-gamers embraced games like Nintendogs and Brain Age, and gamers embraced games like New Super Mario Bros.. and Mario Kart DS.
With the Game Boy Advance having owed much of its success to updated releases of SNES games, it looked early on as though the DS would do the same for Nintendo 64 games. This never happened in the end, though, with Super Mario 64 DS and Diddy Kong Racing DS being the only major examples. Exactly why this was the case is debatable, though the most common explanations are that Nintendo was making a push for more innovative games instead of ports with touchscreen gimmicks bolted on (a major problem with a lot of the system's early games), and/or Nintendo 64 games weren't really system sellers (as that system had a major marketshare decline).
Another thing that some initially believed was that with the PSP using discs, and the DS sticking with carts, that Nintendo was falling into the same trap as with the N64. There were four main reasons that wasn't the case.
- Carts have fewer moving parts, which meant less heat, battery drain, and loading times, something the PSP was notorious for. They are also more resistant to the rough treatment and wear mobile platforms must tolerate.
- Carts are small, and require basically no support hardware, making both them and the console they're used with more compact.
- Compression and the processing power needed to use it had evolved significantly since the N64 days, so the capacity wasn't that big of a problem.
- Of course, the most obvious reason was the fact memory prices had pretty much collapsed by the time the DS came out, making profit margins on affordable CD-capacity cart games possible.
So those advantages (which Sony seems to agree with itself due to the change in media with the PSP's successor), combined with lower development costs, made developers turn around and give huge support for the DS. It wasn't a total reversal, as developers also support the PSP, but it's definitely a redemption for Nintendo.
The DS also had a redesign to address problems noted with the first system, such as a dim screen light and the bulk. The so-called "DS Phat" is the biggest of Nintendo's handhelds since the original Game Boy, while the DS Lite is just about the size of the original GBA. Another redesign, the DSi, dispenses with the GBA slot entirely and slightly decreasing the battery length to increase the size of the dual screens, add an SD Card slot, slim its third dimension even more, add two cameras, and 256MB of onboard flash memory, all built-in. Games can now be downloaded through a DSi Shop Channel, much like the Wii's own Wii Shop Channel. Despite titles like Guitar Hero: On Tour which use the GBA slot, the DSi sold over half a million units in two days.
Yet another redesign, the DSi XL (LL in Japan), upsizes the handheld (slightly wider than the original DS) and was released in Japan in November 2009, Europe on March 5, 2010 and North America on March 28, 2010. Apparently, it's aimed towards the elderly and enables more people to watch the screen at once.
The 3DS, the successor to the DS which includes 3D technology, has its own page now. Just like the PlayStation 2 continued to exist well into the Play Station 3's lifespan, it is expected that the non-3D DS family will stick around for some time after the release of the 3DS.
To date, the Nintendo DS is the second best-selling video game system of all time, with over 140 million units sold as of December 2010. It prints money.
Specifications:[]
- Two ARM CPUs. The main processor runs at 67 MHz, and handles the Polygonal Graphics alongside with its GPU. The secondary processor is a more advanced version of the GBA's processor, and runs at 33 MHz. The DSi's main processor is clocked at 133 MHz.
- The reason for this split is partly to keep GBA compatibility through the secondary processor, and partly because running 3D graphics on both screens would split the processing between them. So having 3D on one screen and 2D on the other is the best compromise.
- That's not to say that no games use both screens for 3D however. There are games out there who try to do 3D on both screens. The only caveat is that the max framerate is 30 fps instead of 60.
- The reason for this split is partly to keep GBA compatibility through the secondary processor, and partly because running 3D graphics on both screens would split the processing between them. So having 3D on one screen and 2D on the other is the best compromise.
- The DS does not have the processor from the Game Boy Color, making it impossible to play original Game Boy or GBC cartridges. While the system is capable of emulating the games, Nintendo will only let you run an emulator if you repurchase a game with it.
- The ARM 7 CPU does audio processing, control input and wireless communications. It can process 16 "voices" at once, with support for ADPCM, 8-bit and 16-bit PCM. Streamed audio, through either PCM or audio codecs are possible. Virtual surround is also possible with certain games.
- The original DS and DS Lite allows one to expand the RAM by slotting a special cartridge into the GBA game slot. Most notably, the DS Browser cart uses it.
- Sadly for ports, just like the GBA, this is still smaller than the industry standard 320×240 size used by nearly every classic gaming platform.
- Which is still smaller than the average non-HD TV.
- Happily, the 3DS's upper screen will be 400x240 for each eye. The touch screen resolution of the 3DS is 320x240.
- Which is still smaller than the average non-HD TV.
- Which completely eliminates the backwards compatibility necessary for certain features in some games, such as 4th generation Pokémon games (though that issue was fixed in the remakes of Gold and Silver), and outright makes the Guitar Hero: On Tour series unplayable.
Games:[]
- Ace Attorney
- Advance Wars
- Aliens Infestation
- Backyard Sports
- Bejeweled Twist
- Blue Dragon
- Brain Age
- Castlevania
- Chrono Trigger
- Contra 4
- Contact
- Cooking Mama
- The Dark Spire
- Dawn of Heroes
- Deep Labyrinth
- Dementium the Ward and its sequel
- Disgaea DS
- Doctor Who: Evacuation Earth
- Dragon Quest
- Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime
- Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker
- Drawn to Life
- Elebits the Adventures of Kai And Zero
- Elite Beat Agents
- Etrian Odyssey
- Final Fantasy
- Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles
- Freddi Fish: ABCs Under the Sea
- Geometry Wars
- Giana Sisters
- Ghost Trick
- Golden Sun: Dark Dawn
- Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars
- Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure
- Hotel Dusk: Room 215
- Imagine Make Up Artist
- Indiana Jones and The Staff of Kings
- Ivy the Kiwi
- Izuna Legend of the Unemployed Ninja
- Ketsui Death Label
- Kingdom Hearts 358 Days Over 2
- Kirby: Canvas Curse
- Kirby: Squeak Squad
- Kirby Super Star Ultra
- Kirby Mass Attack
- The Legend of Kage 2
- The Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass
- Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ
- Lost in Blue
- Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals
- Luminous Arc
- Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games
- Mario & Luigi
- Mario vs. Donkey Kong
- Mech Assault: Phantom War
- Medabots
- Mega Man Battle Network 5 Double Team DS
- Mega Man Star Force series
- Mega Man Zero Collection
- Mega Man ZX series
- Mighty Flip Champs (DSiWare)
- Monster Tale
- New Super Mario Bros..
- Nanashi no Game
- New International Track and Field
- Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors
- Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword
- Ninja Town
- Ni no Kuni
- Nintendogs
- Okamiden
- Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan
- Plants vs. Zombies
- Pokémon
- Princess Debut
- Professor Layton
- Puzzle Quest
- Rhythm Heaven
- Rondo of Swords
- Scribblenauts
- Sega Superstars Tennis and Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing
- Shantae: Risky's Revenge
- SimCity DS
- The Simpsons Game
- Shin Megami Tensei
- Solatorobo
- Soma Bringer
- Sonic the Hedgehog
- Space Invaders Extreme
- Spectrobes
- Spirit Camera: The Cursed Memoir
- Sprung
- Style Savvy
- Suikoden Tierkreis
- Super Mario 64 DS
- Super Princess Peach
- Tales of Innocence
- Tales of the Tempest
- The Idolmaster Dearly Stars
- The World Ends With You
- Theme Park
- Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side 1, 2 and 3
- Viewtiful Joe
- Wario Master of Disguise
- Wario Ware: Touched!
- WarioWare: Snapped! (DSiWare)
- WarioWare: D.I.Y.
- Yoshi's Island DS