I do not have a clear memory of the first time I opened my Nintendo DS. Like all of the new toys, electronics, and game consoles that I received as a child, my DS must have been a gift. My Nintendo DS was the Lite version, coral pink, with a small, stubby stylus to match the matte blush on the inside of the machine.
This was well before the time of cellphone graveyards, where aging iPhones would begin to clutter kitchen drawers and empty shoe boxes. I had been using a worn Game Boy Advance SP, hard fought from my brothers’ clutches with the taped-on rechargeable battery pack to prove it. But my Nintendo DS was the first game console in our house that was mine and mine alone.
In the annals of gaming history, handheld consoles often signify which company is at the top of its game — and which is losing ground to its competitors. For Nintendo, the DS — a portable two-screen touch compatible device meant to fit in the average chino pocket — arriving at the same time as its newest handheld threat: the PlayStation Portable (PSP). It was a successful risk, a console that went on to become one of the best-selling gaming systems of all time. But while the development of the DS and some of its most popular games is recognized as a lucky accident, this forward-thinking machine did more than usher in a new kind of gaming device. It ushered in a cultural expansion of what gaming could be — and who it could be for.
Many of Nintendo DS’ risky design choices made the console not only accessible but aesthetically unique. In keeping with the Game Boy’s model of buttons rather than attaching a new, thumb-based joystick like the PSP, classic games for the DS had to be formatted with the button system. The touch screen, microphone, and stylus meant even those not dexterous enough for the typical shooters could find games perfect for them. But along with the dual screen came wildly successful lifestyle games and huge recognition of just how many female gamers there were.
Gaming has always been a gendered field. “I don’t think I can over emphasize how absolutely shit the games industry was at involving women in any way,” Keza MacDonald, games editor for the Guardian, told Rolling Stone in November. “There was carte blanche to be incredibly sexist in your advertising.” But with the Nintendo DS, it was hard to ignore the fact that many of the console’s best selling games were girl games.
Nintendogs (2005) allowed players to bathe, walk, and train puppy after puppy that would respond to logins. Leave the dog for too long and you would return to a flea-ridden, whimpering pup. Play regularly and you could develop a kennel of sleek, highly trained, award-winning pups. With it came the development of more games that we would now call cozy adjacent, like Animal Crossing, Cooking Mama, or my person favorite failure, The Urbz: Sims in the City. There was also Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training (2005), which combined educational mini games like puzzles, word memory, or sudoku and was also meant to be played everyday using the DS’ voice or touch features. Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training was one of the top ten best selling DS games in the U.S. by 2008. The original Nintendogs sold 20 million units — even bypassing Mario Kart DS. But its success also highlighted previously unknown or misunderstood statistics. Close to half of DS owners were women.
This focus and appreciation for lifestyle gaming turned the DS from a simple console to a generation-defining device. For a lot of Gen Z gamers, the DS was the first version of a smartphone. The aesthetics were sleek. It was easy to carry, which meant simple to hide in a backpack or locker. And a time before unlimited texting was even a possibility, the DS wireless capability turned the PictoChat feature into an unlimited place for discussion and connection between friends. Later iterations of the device only made this stronger, with the addition of cameras giving users the ability to record what we now recognize as some of the poorest quality videos of all time. One DS — at a cost less than that of a PlayStation — and you were already exposed to a world of games that would’ve been deemed experimental two years earlier. Have a friend with a DS, and now you have a community.
For many Gen Z gamers, the DS is a physical representation of the generation’s first experiences with online and digital communities. For many girls, its portable nature enabled a first kind of ownership that often didn’t happen with bigger consoles. It also has an incredibly recognizable aesthetic: those two screens, the flip, the texture of the stylus as people ran it around the control buttons. Newer editions of the DS added features but kept the most defining characteristics, making it recognizable Gen Z nostalgia bait. During the Covid-19 pandemic, there was a 75-percent increase in gaming, according to Verizon. This interest in gaming combined full force with the nostalgia era — which led to a reevaluating for the consoles htat changed people. Fans bringing the DS to events like parties or concerts even became a meme, with commenters all agreeing that even with the blown out sound and useless footage, the physical act of seeing those two screens held aloft still felt right.
There’s very little physical representation of my Nintendo DS that I have left. When my screen started to fail my last year of middle school, it felt like an exorbitant cost to replace something that my iPhone, and this new app called Instagram, could give me at the touch of my fingers. But during the pandemic, I found the shell of my old friend in a forgotten box, next to that taped up Game Boy Advance SD. The Urbz was still in the Game Boy slot. A plush sticker of the Sanrio character Cinnamonroll was flaking off the front, pinned in place by a few loose rhinestones. But I still opened it, felt the weight of that tiny plastic in my hands, and dragged the stylus over buttons and the tiny divots of the speakers. It didn’t even turn on — but it still felt like an unimaginable gift.
