The Nintendo DS Turns 10 61
An anonymous reader writes The Nintendo DS has reached a remarkable milestone: it's turned 10 years old. A new retrospective on one of Nintendo's greatest ever smash hits points out that it's now old enough to become a Pokemon trainer, and looks back at some of the greatest (and possibly overlooked) titles on the platform which has sold 154 million copies in a decade.
EA DICE (Score:2)
GayWAD is neither affiliated with nor endorsed by DICE.COM.
But is it affiliated with or endorsed by EA Digital Illusions CE? I just checked [wikipedia.org] and was surprised that DICE never developed a DS or 3DS game.
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These fucking trolls kill me sometimes, jesus christ I laughed out loud
"[ ] I have used SLASHDOT BETA to find a sex partner"
ahahahah
Klerck, you're out there in spirit little buddy
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Truly an American icon.
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It reminds me of an Onion Radio News episode from 2008, 1998 was 10 Fucking Years Ago" [theonion.com] It was almost a wake-up call because at that point as it did seem like almost yesterday.
Oh man, Red Bull totally knows gaming (Score:2)
Two Tony Hawk games? THPS2 on GBA was crazy for its time to cram it into a handheld, but still, you wouldn't have ever preferred a portable to a handheld for that series.
GTA was vaguely neat in the sense that it was on a Nintendo system
How about Elite Beat Agents (or Ouendan)? Hotel Dusk Room 215? Phoenix Wright? Professor Layton? 999? BRAIN AGE! Gawd. Get a better list. :P
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Red Bull's only product is marketing.
All the "extreme" sports events, websites, media and soft drinks are the means by which they push their marketing into the world.
This article's primary goal is to push their brand, any information or entertainment contained within it is just collatoral damage.
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You make Red Bull sound like Apple.
Copies? (Score:4, Informative)
I understand using the word "copies" for things like movies, music, software. But with hardware, shouldn't it be "units"?
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We can also manage to read "txtspeak" correctly but that doesn't make it proper english either.
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I'm guessing most of my posts contain grammatical errors as well as strange sentence structures, since english isn't my primary language.
As for the rest of your comment, I couldn't agree more. There's a lot of engineers, programmers and coders here. Our job is focused on finding solutions to problems, making sure our code compiles, etc. Nitpicking comes with the profession, I guess.
lackluster list (Score:1)
The DS, eh? (Score:3)
Now I feel old, I don't even know what that is.
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Yeah, me too.
I'm pretty sure a DS is sort of an updated version of one of these things:
http://s.hswstatic.com/gif/sli... [hswstatic.com]
Nintendo DS (Score:2)
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Is there a *successful* handheld gaming platform that isn't proprietary and closed source? Do we have an option?
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You can probably run a limited port of Tux Racer on your cracked Palm III. Or maybe on one of the WinCE PDAs that can run NetBSD (without display or touch-screen support. but YOU CAN LOG ON a TERMINAL session!)
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You can probably run a limited port of Tux Racer on your cracked Palm III
I never knew that they equate "cracked" as "not proprietary" nowadays???
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Funny Timing (Score:3)
After a few weeks of thought I just today came to the conclusion that I am completely over the Pokemon series, which I was in love when it first released in 1998 at 13. Black, for the DS, was the last version I purchased. Maybe if they ever give it a huge overhaul or MMO...
Anyway, more on topic, I would have thought that Nintendo would learn from the DSi. Not that it's a bad system, but the camera features went mostly unused because there was no guarantee that players had a camera-equipped system. Only a few games made heavy use of it, and a few more than that had some incorporation that could be ignored if you weren't on a DSI (or DSi XL).
So here we are with the 3DS and now Nintendo is releasing their "New 3DS" (what a horrible name) that has some nice features that will also probably not be used. The big selling points are the "nub" (why couldn't we just have a second, if smaller, stick?), two extra shoulder buttons, and, most importantly, added horsepower. They've already announced Xenoblade Chronicles 3DS, which will require the New model as it will need the better specs, and the already-released Smash Bros. 3DS will not allow you to use many system tools you could normally use while running a game because of its requirements on the 3DS, but you can on the New 3DS. This will wind up with the same thing as the DSi, with so much fractioning of the base that developers will have to program with the assumption of the Old model; at best we'll get more games that will use more of the Old processing power, like Smash Bros., but otherwise it will play out the same. Some games will have support for the extra controls, a scant few (likely those that need the New hardware) will require the controls, and most games will ignore them completely.
And US/EU will get it at some point in the near future... maybe. Nintendo kinda shot themselves in the foot by announcing it, and giving it to only Japan and Australia this year (though it's cool that our kangaroo friends are seeing some love after usually being the last to get stuff). Sales for the existing models of the 3DS in America and Europe are likely going to flatline this holiday season, purchased only by parents for their kids who don't keep up with gaming news (or are too little to do so.) Anyone else who had been considering the system is now going to sit on that cash, because why would you buy the old model now when the new hotness could come in a few months?
After the poor reception of the Wii U, I'd hoped that Nintendo would look at their failures and learn from them. Instead, it seems like they're only doubling-down...
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Having owned a DS and a few other portable gaming systems.. I have to say my favorite handheld is my Gameboy Advance Micro. Battery life is excellent, portability factor is unmatched, and I much prefer carts over discs (PSP), and even over the DS cards.
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I just fired up an old beat up micro I had laying around last week. At the time it was released, the micro had one of the highest DPI color screens I'd ever seen. Still the SP is my favorite. It was the first Gameboy of any kind with an actual backlit screen, and it was beautiful to behold. Games looked so vibrant and clear compared to the Gameboy Advanced, that they almost didn't event seem like they were the same games. The clamshell design was also new and suited to the device perfectly. When close
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The GBA did support a Suspend feature, but the games had to deliberately support it also, and few did.
I prefer the Micro to the GBA SP for one simple reason: The micro is wider. The SP is so narrow that I wind up with finger cramps from using the shoulder buttons. The Micro's easier to hold.
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I think the Atari Lynx is my favourite.
I played it in stores a few times and it was massive, good looking, back-lit color screen!
The games may have been bad what do I know and it was big but .. It's such a cute device.
Such beauty:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi... [wikimedia.org]
Not this one:
http://www.studio42.info/Lynx/... [studio42.info]
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi... [wikimedia.org]
The Sega game gear I never felt the attraction for:
http://www.studio42.info/GameG... [studio42.info]
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The Gameboy Advance SP is my preferred Pokemon platform. It can run Red or Blue or any of the old carts, and it's the perfect host for the best Pokemon version, Emerald.
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I don't get it for Zelda on the DS either really.
Though I appreciated my time in the first game for some reason. Guess it's because it was the first Zelda game I actually experienced & played through (I had played Zelda on NES but wasn't good enough on it to have any clue where I was going, also tried Link but had even less of a clue there.)
Half of the game is spent transporting yourself from some point to another point with repetitive game play, many of the puzzles are similar and repetitive too and th
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Though I appreciated my time in the first game for some reason. Guess it's because it was the first Zelda game I actually experienced & played through (I had played Zelda on NES but wasn't good enough on it to have any clue where I was going, also tried Link but had even less of a clue there.)
By "Link", I'm assuming you mean The Adventure of Link for NES?
Honestly, if I had to introduce people to the Zelda series, I'd introduce them to the SNES/GBA A Link to the Past.
A Link to the Past may be 20+ years old now, but it's the first 2D Zelda game that gives you hints as to what you're supposed to be doing.
It's not truly open world (unlike its 2013 direct sequel A Link Between Worlds for 3DS), but unlike most games in the series, you have some idea of where you're supposed to be going at any given ti
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Well there is the circle pad pro for the old models, that at least allows the new controls on the old models. I hope some more games start using it because since I finishing metal gear solid 3 I only use mine because of the better grip.
That reasoning makes no sense (Score:2)
If people are really following Nintendo so closely as to know about the impending release (and I am not sure how many really are) and they intend to wait and buy it, then Nintendo only loses a sale if they don't actually complete the purchase of the upgraded 3DS. The new 3DS very possibly has higher margins (while the old 3DS will be discounted to deplete stock) anyway, so Nintendo might end up making MORE money if people hold-out.
It is nothing like the Wii U. The Wii U's problem is that after the initial
I am the last one .. (Score:2)
What you are looking at is quite possibly the last of the species. There likely wont be a mainstream successful handheld console that is made for gaming.
Considering the success Nintendo has had. . . (Score:2)
. . . making handheld games, I strongly suspect you are in error. People want to play games on the go. Smartphones are not exactly good gaming devices as they exist out of the box. Unless that changes, there is likely going to be a market for handheld gaming consoles for the foreseeable future.
People were making similar claims about the 3DS, that it was selling poorly because of smartphones, but it is currently the best-selling game console of this generation.
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You don't talk to kids, do you?
Remember when ALL YOU WANTED was your own computer?
Kids are over that.
They're also over the ALL I WANT IS A LAPTOP
and ALL I WANT IS A NETBOOK
Now, all they want is a tablet. Kids don't want PCs anymore. It's unbelievable.
And even worse: many don't even want a tablet. they want just a smartphone.
NDS != NDS (Score:2)
The DS turned 10 in the same way that the Playstation turned 20.
Current DS is a completely different device from the first DS.
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Yea, Mine still works, got it at launch.
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Both of my original DS's have a cracked hinge (rough handling from the kids), but both of them still work. Our family still uses them occasionally to play multiplayer games like Mario Kart and New Super Mario Bros DS with our two 3DS XLs.
That's a pretty awesome feature. Several months ago I picked up three used copies of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time for cheap, and the 3DS XLs my wife and I got last Christmas can play multiplayer with the systems we had even before we had kids.
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Both of my original DS's have a cracked hinge (rough handling from the kids), but both of them still work,
Cracked hinges were a common problem with the original DS and DS Lite. A design defect, if you will.
I kept using my DS Lite with cracked hinge until the R button stopped working and replaced it with a DSi XL... and replaced that with a 3DS XL once decent games started arriving for it.
I still have my DSi around here somewhere...
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I think you are being too critical of the product since the poster above didn't bother to try to maintain it so didn't get as far as finding if it was impossible to maintain. My DS is still in good shape, probably never used it enough to give it a hammering, so I've never done any repairs on it and only opened up the back to flash the firmware, but it doesn't look all that difficult to work on:
http://w