20 Years of The NINTENDODS

NINTENDO'S QUIRKY HARDWARE DESIGN MAY HAVE RAISED A FEW EYEBROWS TWO DECADES AGO, BUT THE BRILLIANT GAMES IT ENABLED DREW IN PLAYERS REGARDLESS OF AGE OR GENDER. RETRO GAMER SPEAKS TO THE PEOPLE WHO MADE, SOLD AND DEVELOPED GAMES FOR THE DS AS WE CELEBRATE THE BEST-SELLING HANDHELD EVER

- NICK THORPE

We're going to pose a question to you all, and we want you to answer it honestly. If someone had told you in 2004 that Nintendo was about to abandon the Game Boy, would you have believed them? While each of Nintendo's home consoles to that point had sold less than its predecessor, the Game Boy family of consoles had been the company's golden goose, a reliable set of earners and a brand that had become synonymous with handheld gaming as a whole over its 15-year history. So of course Nintendo wouldn't do that, it would be a ludicrous thing to do. However, history tells us that while it took a while, that's exactly what Nintendo did - and it was all thanks to the Nintendo DS.

The Nintendo DS was first announced in a press statement in January 2004, with Nintendo's president Satoru Iwata stating, "We have developed Nintendo DS based upon a completely different concept from existing game devices in order to provide players with a unique entertainment experience for the 21st century." Nintendo revealed that the console would have two three-inch screens and two processors, with GamesIndustry.biz noting in some reports that the screens would be backlit and the processors would be an ARM9 and an ARM7 - all of which turned out to be accurate. Nintendo teased that the initial announcement was "but a glimpse of the additional features and benefits" that would be revealed in full at E3 that year, and that the system would be marketed separately to the GameCube and Game Boy Advance.