Nintendo DS: The first five years

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A year-by-year look at the world’s most popular handheld

Criticism: Another barren summer from Nintendo, with only Picross DS and Planet Puzzle League to tide us over. Granted, we were neck-deep in Pokemon all summer, but it’s sad when third parties have to carry your platform through the months when everyone ages 5~15 is dying for new games. Furthermore, there are still too few games really taking advantage of the stylus, microphone and dual screen presentation, even if the games themselves were excellent. Makes us wonder, did we need this setup in the first place?

Sales: Once again, Nintendo’s numbers rise to absurd levels, with areported64 million units sold worldwide. That’s more than the NES, Super NES or Genesis pushed in their entire lifetime. Geeze.

Best game of 2007: Zelda: Phantom Hourglass

Another year, another Nintendo title to take the top spot. We already praised Hourglass in the above section, so we’ll take this moment to predict Spirit Tracks will perform just as admirably.

Honorable mentions: Contra 4, Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords

Worst game of 2007: Chicken Shoot

On the other end of the spectrum lies Chicken Shoot, aka the shovelware drivel that’s choking every inch of DS and Wii shelf space these days. As sad as it is, this is the true face of DS development, no matter how hard you want to believe otherwise.

Hateful mentions: Everything else like Chicken Shoot. Dozens. Hundreds.

Brett Elston
Brett Elston

A fomer Executive Editor at GamesRadar, Brett also contributed content to many other Future gaming publications including Nintendo Power, PC Gamer and Official Xbox Magazine. Brett has worked at Capcom in several senior roles, is an experienced podcaster, and now works as a Senior Manager of Content Communications at PlayStation SIE.