Nintendo DS Retrospective: The Experiment That Outsold Every Game Boy

Nintendo did not launch the DS as the next Game Boy. In January 2004 it called the dual-screen device an experimental "third pillar" next to the Game Boy Advance and the GameCube, rather than a replacement for either. Meanwhile former president Hiroshi Yamauchi was blunt about the stakes: "If the DS succeeds, we will rise to heaven, but if it fails we will sink to hell".

It rose. With its later models the DS sold 154 million units, more than the Game Boy and Game Boy Color managed together, and it stayed Nintendo's best-selling console until the Switch passed it in 2025. Even now it ranks third of all time, behind only the PlayStation 2 and the Switch. Heaven, it turns out, folds in half.

Key facts

Released

November 21, 2004 in North America, December 2, 2004 in Japan, March 11, 2005 in EuropeSource

Launch price

US$149.99 in North America, ¥15,000 in Japan, €149.99 or £99.99 in EuropeSource

Units sold

154 million, the DS Lite and DSi includedSource

Best-selling model

DS Lite, over 60 percent of all DS hardwareSource

Best-selling game

New Super Mario Bros., 30.80 million copiesSource

Screens

Two 3-inch screens, the lower one a touchscreenSource

Succeeded by

Nintendo 3DS, February 2011Source

How Nintendo bet on two screens and won

Development began around mid-2002, when Yamauchi stepped down and proposed that Nintendo explore a system built around two screens. His successor, Satoru Iwata, admitted that Nintendo had fallen behind on trends such as online gaming, so he backed a handheld that would reach people who did not usually play games and that developers would also find easier to support. On top of that, Nintendo doubted players would pay recurring fees for online services, so the design leaned on wireless play nearby instead of subscriptions.

The launch went better than anyone had planned. For the first time Nintendo released a system in North America before Japan, to catch the US holiday season, and more than three million preorders came in across the two regions. As a result, worldwide shipments reached 2.8 million by the end of 2004, roughly 800,000 above the forecast. Some early units did have stuck pixels, as was common with screens of the time, so Nintendo of America offered to repair or replace the screens of owners who were bothered by them.

After that the DS kept reinventing itself. The slimmer DS Lite of 2006 brought brighter screens and better battery life, and it ended up as most of the DS sold. Then the DSi of November 1, 2008 added two cameras and digital game downloads, although it dropped the Game Boy Advance slot. Even so, only six games ever came on DSi-only cards, and the whole line handed over to the Nintendo 3DS in February 2011.

The best Nintendo DS games

Ranked by how often players recommend them, with picks other players backed counting extra. Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver takes #1, and The World Ends with You is second.

Every Nintendo DS list

Handhelds for Nintendo DS games

Most emulation handhelds run DS games well, although on a single screen the two DS screens have to share the space.