The Nintendo DS Shocked the World, First by Succeeding, Then By Changing the Way Popular Games Are Made http://www.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=0&cId=3176670"Time was, a console reached five years old, it was expected to start thinking about retirement. It'd get a price drop, maybe a nice slim remodeling, and a handful of unforgettable triple-A games. Its successor would be announced at an E3 or a Tokyo Game Show, and then it would slowly start trickling out of the world of popular game design, and into the bright corners of nostalgia all great machines go. That axiom's never quite applied to handhelds. At least, that is, handhelds made by Nintendo. The Game Boy (including its three makeovers, the Game Boy Pocket, Game Boy Light, and Game Boy Color) was on shelves for 12 years before its first real successor, the Game Boy Advance, launched. Nintendo sold 118 million Game Boys in those 12 years.
Nintendo's second handheld empire turns five years old this November. In half a decade, Nintendo has sold just under 108 million Nintendo DSes. Not only is it not ready to retire, the DS is on track to be the most popular devoted gaming machine in human history. Its popularity isn't undeserved. The DS hardware, a platform that was seen as too underpowered and eccentric to succeed before it was released, has fundamentally changed the way popular games are made. It has been the proving ground for the new design ideas driving the post-PlayStation zeitgeist, it redefined the concept of casual games, and remains one of the last havens for experimenting with traditional genres like RPGs and sidescrollers. It isn't hyperbole: the DS changed everything. ..."
