Have Your Say! The 10th anniversary of the Nintendo DS

It’s hard to believe it’s been almost a decade since the Nintendo DS hit store shelves. From its humble beginnings an experimental “third pillar” to the existing GameCube and Game Boy Advance, the DS grew to become both Nintendo’s most successful console in terms of sales and the best-selling handheld of all time. The two screens and stylus controls might have been initially dismissed as a gimmick, but thanks to a great lineup of games everyone from existing fans to casual users seemed to be sold on that touch screen. Predating the boom in mobile gaming, software like Brain Training and Nintendogs helped to bring a new audience to the console. Heck, even my Grandma owns a DS!

What started as a truly terrible launch lineup (well, Super Mario 64 DS and Feel the Magic: XX/XY were okay) grew to an absolutely massive library of titles with something for everyone. Sure, there was a lot of shovelware, but it seemed like everyone from Atlus to Zoonami were backing the console. Nintendo’s New Super Mario Bros. and Pokemon games might have dominated the sales charts, but the DS became home to a number of more off-beat series like Phoenix Wright, Trauma Center, Etrian Odyssey and Dementium. I’d argue the Nintendo DS had the best third-party support of any Nintendo console since the NES, and this time Nintendo weren’t bullying publishers with oppressive, restrictive contracts!

But let’s get down to business; we’re running a bunch of DS-related features throughout the month and we need your feedback. If you remember our Big Huge NintendoEverything Wii Send-Off from 2012, you can expect something along those lines, with a series of top-arbitrary-number lists and other things. So please fill in our handy dandy voting form and help us in celebrating the best the DS had to offer.