Nintendo DS
The clamshell handheld that split gaming in two — literally. Nintendo's dual-screen DS added a touch-sensitive bottom screen and stylus, backward compatibility with Game Boy Advance cartridges, and era-defining hits like Nintendogs, Brain Age, and Mario Kart DS that proved touch controls weren't a gimmick.
Launched in North America on November 21, 2004, the DS was an evolutionary leap: two screens (the bottom a resistive touchscreen), a stylus for puzzle games and handwriting recognition, and PictoChat for drawing and messaging nearby players. The slimmer, faster DS Lite arrived in 2006 and became the default model.
The system's vast library of well over a thousand titles ranged from brain-training (Brain Age) to pet simulators (Nintendogs) to Mario platformers. The DS family — including the DSi and DSi XL — sold over 154 million units, making it one of the best-selling game systems ever and the handheld that proved the touchscreen could define an era.
Similar items
Game Boy Advance
Nintendo's 32-bit handheld released June 2001, with a landscape shape and full backward compatibility with the entire Game Boy and Game Boy Color library. The screen was notoriously hard to see until the GBA SP (2003) added a front-lit clamshell. Around 80 million sold across the GBA, SP, and Micro variants.
![Video thumbnail — Wii Would Like to Play (2006) - Wii Commercial [4K + 60 FPS]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/QBOFhmjTgvY/maxresdefault.jpg)
Nintendo Wii
The white remote-waving console that turned living rooms into bowling alleys and convinced your grandmother that she wanted to play tennis. Nintendo's motion-controlled revolution sold 101 million units by letting non-gamers actually *feel* like they were swinging a bat or rolling a bowling ball, while leaving a trail of cracked TV screens in its wake.
Pokémon Red & Blue
Nintendo's Game Boy sensation that turned playground trading into a global phenomenon. Pokémon Red and Blue made 1998 the year school ceased all productive function in the pursuit of catching 'em all.
Game Boy
The grey brick: four AA batteries, a pea-green screen you had to angle toward a lamp, and Tetris in the box. It was outgunned on paper by every colour handheld it faced, and it buried all of them. Nintendo kept the line it started alive until 2003.