Does anyone else love the Nintendo DS? I haven't seen a whole ton of topics about it on the Gaming Board, so I thought I'd start one so people can discuss their games and whatnot. Knock yourself out!

I've got Nintendogs: Lab & Friends (cute as heck), Super Mario 64 DS, and Animal Crossing: Wild World.

I hope to get Mario Kart for DS soon. I hear there's racing every Tuesday or Wednesday night at the McDonald's Nintendo Hotspot!

Well I`ve had my DS since just about when it was first released down under so I have had a bit of a wait for the quality games to start pouring in but now they have started there seems to be no end to them.

I own Nintendogs, Mario 64 DS, Advance Wars:Dual Strike and Mario Kart DS. Out of them I really have only been playing Mario Kart and AW:DS of late and am hoping to get a the DS interent router to play online soon.

Here is just some sales figures from over in Japan which highlight how well the DS is selling.

Hardware - This Week | Last Week | Total 2005 Sales | Cumulative Sales 2002-2005 (courtesy of Game Science)

1.) Nintendo DS - 597,628 | 408,770 3,761,175 | 5,256,771
2.) PSP - 161,332 | 95,689 | 2,089,869 | 2,572,221
3.) PlayStation 2 - 97,475 | 55,342 | 1,890,200 | 11,295,406
4.) GameCube - 36,646 | 17,849 | 260,601 | 3,143,741
5.) Game Boy Advance SP - 35,764 | 19,098 | 680,264 | 5,675,317
6.) Game Boy micro - 19,261 | 14,432 | 403,854 | 403,854
7.) Xbox 360 - 5,674 | 8,623 | 58,267 | 58,267
8.) Game Boy Advance - 906 | 416 | 24,733 | 4,553,111
9.) Xbox - 141 | 182 | 11,895 | 472,330

Software - This Week | Total Sales

1.) Kingdom Hearts II (PS2, Square Enix) - 727,591 | NEW
2.) Animal Crossing: Wild World (NDS, Nintendo) - 416,132 | 1,177,108
3.) Mario Kart DS (NDS, Nintendo) - 302,742 | 667,799
4.) Naruto: Narutimate Hero 3 (PS2, Bandai) - 216,966 | NEW
5.) Pokémon Mysterious Dungeon: Blue Rescue Force (NDS, The Pokémon Company) - 157,786 | 511,704
6.) Pokémon Mysterious Dungeon: Red Rescue Force (GBA, The Pokémon Company) - 156,430 | 512,054
7.) Tamagotchi no PuchiPuchi Omisecchi (NDS, Bandai) - 156,181 | 721,104
8.) Metal Gear Solid 3 Subsistence (PS2, Konami) - 103,894 | NEW
9.) Mario Party 7 (GC, Nintendo) - 100,130 | 319,650
10.) Kahashima Ryuuta Kyouju no Nou o Kitaeru Otona DS Training (NDS, Nintendo) - 93,240 | 1,004,681

And on top of that, it is being talked about that the Nintendo DS sold an absolutely amazing 604,000 in the week between 19th - 25th December, 2005. That makes around the 1.3 - 1.4 million mark in DS sales over the past three weeks!

All this is from http://www.cubed3.com

There is already a DS forum we should merge these 2 topics.
There is also a Nintendogs topic if you want to talk about it there.

is the DS a gameboy?

No way man.Completely Different.
www.nintendo.com/DS

IMO, they're better than the PSP. The DS is strictly gaming.

^exactly.
Bt the PSP is more powerfull.

True, and PSP is smaller. The DS is kind of chunky, but they had to put all of that technology somewhere.

The PSP is heavy to.
But i like the weight to it.

I have:
Super Mario 64 DS
Nanostray
Kirby:Canvas Curse (Borrowed)
Goldeneye: Rogue Agent
Mario Kart DS
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
Tony Hawk's American Sk8land
Sonic Rush


I leech off of the next-door neighbor's router to play Mario Kart and THAS online.
Mario Kart online is unpredictable and some players are really hard-core. I raced a guy named Gozita who had over 300 wins and 300 loses.

I'm called Thren and I have 10 wins and 16 loses.

I'm thinking of getting Mario Kart but i'm not a big fan of racing games.
Although for WiFi right now those are the best.

I hear Mario Kart DS is pretty cool, but I don't think it'll ever be as cool as the original for N64. I was always Princess Peach.

Its bloody hard to get a positive win/loss record in Mario Kart.I keep running into these hardcore racers who have over 100 wins and less than 20 losses.

Im going to get mario kart DS some time this week. seeing as I have a DS but no DS games. :/

I have not played my DS in like a month decided to get trough some back log.

I got a couple of the mainstream games you guys have except for MK DS, i should get it when I get the cash.

If you want some out of the ordinary wtf type games when you first hear about it I recommend two with high praise Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney <- review. Yeah I know a lawyer sim game, buts its different, sunny and a fun game to play.




and Trauma Center: Under the Knife <- review. I stil can't believe I'm playing is a surgery sim game. Its different and one of the few game that actually use the stylus and dual screens 100% of the time.



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Do you guys know that a DS 2 is coming out hopefully next holiday season, probably smaller, lighter, and a bit more powerful.

I want to get this game to.
It looks amazing.

Is it just me, or are these graphics just plain ugly? I might get it...

First off i think the graphics on that game are pretty good.
But it is the DS so their not going to be spectacular

If you can go to IGN and download some videos of it in motion. Since the DS has a low resolution screenshots almost always plae in comparison to the game in motion.


Yeah, I don't understand how they do that. Even racing against newbies, it is really random who will win.


Firstly, the original was on the SNES.
Secondly, this isn't a port of the N64 one. However, it does have tracks from the 64, GBA, and GCN versions.

what do the DS game cartridges look like?

They look like a memory card for a digital camera.

I have heard about how Nintendo were working on a "SP" version of the DS to release late this year or early next year but nothing concrete. Do you have any links to any sites with info on this?

Edit: I read it off a interview almost two months ago like before the 360 launch. At that time everybody was making their own mock ups of the DS-SP. I'll see what I can find.

found article
Nintendo hints at coming price war
Revolution may lowball competitors to help attract consumer eyes.
November 10, 2005: 1:10 PM EST
Game Over is a weekly column by Chris Morris

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) – While the Xbox 360 is going to be dominating the media spotlight for the next few weeks (and possibly months), senior officials at Nintendo are quietly planting the seeds of Revolution.

Nintendo's next generation video game machine won't be out until 2006, but Reggie Fils-Aime, executive vice president of sales and marketing for Nintendo of America hinted this week the company might have a surprise up its sleeve.

Microsoft's Xbox 360 has adopted a two-tier price strategy ($299 for a bare bones version and $399 for a souped-up machine). Sony, meanwhile, has shouted from the rooftops the PS3 would be a pricey piece of equipment. Nintendo, though, seems ready to lowball its competitors on the retail front.

"Value has been a key card for us this generation and we'll continue to play it," Fils-Aime told me. "Do I expect us to be at a lower price point than our competition? Yes I do. Have we determined a price yet? No we haven't."

Nintendo employed this strategy at the beginning of this round of the console wars in 2001. While Sony and Microsoft released their video game machines at $299, the GameCube initially sold for $100 lower. Ultimately, the move didn't work as well as hoped. The GameCube is third in hardware sales, behind PlayStation 2 and Xbox, a position typically blamed on a weaker portfolio of third-party games and (initially, at least) the machine's boxy design, which even senior officials acknowledge looks childlike.

"I think there were some lessons we learned with the GameCube that we need to apply to the Revolution," said Fils-Aime. "First, we've got make sure that the titles in the first six months are strong and can drive sales. We've also got to make sure the console is attractive visually. And we've got to deliver on the right consumer needs. With GameCube, at the time, portability was thought to be a big factor – that's why it has a handle. Obviously, that wasn't the case."

The Revolution (which will likely to be called something else when it hits store shelves) is aimed at a wider audience than the GameCube or any of Nintendo's previous systems. While it will play DVD movies (a departure for the company), its primary focus will be games. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 will focus strongly on games as well, of course, but have their eyes on a bigger prize – digital domination of the living room. Nintendo has said it wants, instead, to attract people who do not consider themselves gamers.

There are still plenty of mysteries about the Revolution, of course. And given Nintendo's proclivity for secrecy, we won't know many of those answers until mid-next year, at least. For example, will the Revolution ship with any of the auxiliary devices for the controller, a motion-sensitive unit that looks like a TV remote control? (Playing action titles, for instance, could almost demand a second device to facilitate movement in the game.) The answer? To be determined. "A lot of that will be driven by our first party games," said Fils-Aime.

One thing's for sure: The Revolution will not support high definition video, a marked divergence from the path Microsoft (Research) and Sony (Research) are taking. And it's not something the company is re-thinking, despite the fervent hopes of some hardcore gaming fans.

Casual and non-gamers, the company feels, are less interested in flashy graphics than enjoyable games. And the large files that go hand in hand with high definition video result in "almost interminably long" load times for games, said Fils-Aime, something that would also be detrimental to a mainstream audience.

"What we'll offer in terms of gameplay and approachability will more than make up for the lack of HD," he said.

As for existing products, don't be surprised if more facelifts are on the way for existing products. Nintendo unveiled a streamlined Game Boy Advance earlier this year (much along the lines of Apple's iPod Nano), dubbed the Game Boy Micro.

The logical choice for the next facelift would be the Nintendo DS. Last year's hottest holiday gift has seen its popularity grow as Nintendo and third party publishers have put out increasingly appealing software, but the device itself is fairly ugly by gaming standards.

Fils-Aime hinted a revamped DS is in the works: "As soon as [the DS] was launched, we started looking at ways to tweak it visually."

One final note for holiday 2005 shoppers: While Nintendo seems set to be a price spoiler next year, don't look for the GameCube, Game Boy Advance or Nintendo DS to get any cheaper this year. There is "nothing planned right now" in terms of price cuts, according to Fils-Aime.

source

I really hope theu don;t bring out a DS SP

Me, too.

YES! I just unlocked Wario on Super Mario 64 DS!

I was super pleased with the GBA SP but that was because it folded and was backlit.
The DS already does that.
The only thing they can do with it is make it sleeker.

^Indeed. From what I can remember they said all they really wanted to do was reduce its size and just make minor improvements. I doubt it will be a great departure from what we have at the moment but with Nintendo you never know.

I think this is where nintedo try's to gouge the public

whats the next DS color thats coming to the US?

I hate how they keep making things soon after I buy something.. The day I bought the gameboy color I was really happy. Then the advance came out so I was like "alright, more color" and just bought it.. Soon after, the SP was released and was displeased by the fact that the only real change made was the shape and lights. Then was just all 'are you kidding me?' when I heard the DS was coming out. Now a DS SP?? This is getting ridiculous.

Well the DS is a completly different system, from the gameboy advance. Even though there is not that many games out that use all its features.

The micro is a rip of it cost more then the street price of a gamecube, but it cost like $40 to make just one.

Yeah but i kind of like the micro because you can change faceplates.

^Seems just like an attempt by Nintendo to make some more money which I certainly dont blame them for as all intelligent businesses do. I like my DS and GBA having a little bit of size. If it gets too small its likely to get lost or broken.

Yeah but the reason why the SP is so cool is because the screen is protected from scratches.

DS/GBA, I still see them as the same thing. =P

try playing truama center on the GBA. you can't the game is 100% dependent on the dual screen and stylus pen. Try playing MKDS on the GBS, you can't you need wifi. Try playing Mario 64 on the GBA, you can't the game is in 3D.

Like I said two totally different systems.

^I totally agree Pancake

my sister has a DS, she has nintendogs, Ping Pals and zoo tycoon DS. the only decent game on the DS now is nintendogs

We are all well aware of your preference towards the PSP Weird_Al_Wonnabe and I seriously doubt you have played every single DS game. You are in no position to comment on there being only one decent DS game.There a very large number of unique and brilliant games out on the DS with many many more to come.

Nintendo is mocking M$ Xbox360 DS sucks ass btw.

What an intelligent and understandable statement there Kaze. If you do not like the DS merely say so. There is no need to say it "sucks ass" as you put it. You seem to make a habit of bagging Nintendo with little to no knowledge concerning the state of each gaming console, its games, plans and position in the "console wars".

The DS has sold well over twice as much as the PSP worldwide in not only hardware but software. So please think before making such comments. I am personally sick of people who make them and ruin such interesting and intelligent threads.

WOW! Not to mention it launched 5-6 months BEFORE PSP and went through one f***ing holiday

^Kaze if you wish to argue about how much greater the PSP is against the DS create a DS vs PSP thread although I doubt it will last long. This thread is to discuss the DS and its games.

Seconded. I mean, I'm no fan of Microsoft. However, I don't constantly go around saying it sucks.



I'm sorry for your sis. Ping Pals is worthless, because it is almost exactly like Pictochat.
Zoo Tycoon is also very poorly made, and really just a GBA port. There are other good games out there for the DS other than Nintendogs.

I already know that. I don't play Truama Center or Mario Kart DS nor do I plan on getting them. obviously, M64DS won't work on the GBA. And more importantly, I wasn't talking about the difference between GBA and DS. Also, keep in mind I said that i still see them as the same thing, I never said they ARE the same thing.

I said they were the same to me for a few different reasons. 1) Theyre both hand-held systems that run games. 2) I'm not a person who is easily impressed. 3) Graphics are one of the things I look at last. 4) I like to keep things simple. GB>GBC>GBA>GBASP>DS The only differences I see is the change in shape, the price and two or three new add-ons each time they come out with something.

No offense intended, but that's the same as saying:
NES>SNES>N64>GCN>REV
PS>PS2>PS3
XBOX>XBOX 360
:are all the same, except not at all.

Why is everyone attacking me? T_T

I give up, my english sucks and thus even more suckage into putting my thoughts into words.

(FYI, I did the GB>GBC>GBA>GBASP>DS because up untill DS there aren't any amazing changes.)

Nintendo updates DS sales figures

Thu, January 5, 2006
Nintendo sells 10M DS systems






(AP) BERLIN - Nintendo Co. said Thursday it has sold about 13 million of its Nintendo DS handheld game systems worldwide, updating figures released two days earlier.
The company said Thursday that the new figures include updated tallies from Europe, where Nintendo has sold 3.5 million of the devices since its launch in March.

Perrin Kaplan, vice president for marketing at Nintendo's U.S. headquarters, had previously said the company had sold 10 million Nintendo DS systems, including about 1 million in Europe.

The Japanese gaming company had sold about 4 million Nintendo DS units in North America and more than 5 million in Japan since the game system's U.S. launch in November of 2004.

This information came from http://wham.canoe.ca/handhelds/2006/01/05/1380328.html

I only thought they were around 10 or 11 million. Considering how long it took for their games library to be big enough to be classified as a game library this is phenomenal.

Nintendo has and always will RULE

i have a ds,i lost the charger for it though so its been dead for like,2 months now