What If the Nintendo DS Had Never Come Out?

GotGame: Its hard to imagine what hand held gaming would have evolved differently if this one little device had never been released. Would developers have continued to develop the interactive touch screen as a much as they have now? If not, what kind of nuance in gaming mechanics would we have gotten instead?

[Ramon3MR]

I would've missed out on the awesomeness that is Animal Crossing, New Super Mario Bros. and WarioWare.

[MadLad]

Being that it is my favorite handheld to date . . .

[Locksus]

Most likely 2nd screen gaming wouldn't be as huge as it is now, since the DS really did make the whole idea popular.

[Venoxn4g]

yea and DS made touch screen popular in games :) love that handheld..and its successor :)

[colonel179]

Something that bothers me a lot is that consoles and handhelds used to be something different from their predecessors, but if you take a look at all new consoles, they al have recycled content. For example:

3DS is just a DS with 3D.

Wii U has the interface, Miis, and everything that the Wii had, it doesn't have a completely new UI.

PS4 the same as Wii U, it has a lot of sounds and UI elements from PS3

Vita same as PSP, also has same elements of UI and design.

I miss when new consoles meant new everything. New design, new interface, new games, new approach; but now every single console uses the same recycled stuff from previous generations in some way or the other.

[admiralvic]

"Something that bothers me a lot is that consoles and handhelds used to be something different from their predecessors, but if you take a look at all new consoles, they al have recycled content. For example: "

Clearly you need a history lesson, since this has remain almost constantly throughout history. Want proof? Look at the WHOLE lifespan of the Gameboy.

B/W Gameboy > Color Gameboy > Better specs Gameboy in color > Backlit Gameboy > At some point there was a mini Gameboy > 2 screens (the only actual change that was significant) > Better OS DS > Larger system > 3D > Larger 3D > Removed 3D.

[TheFirstClassic]

Uh, wat? The Vita has a completely different UI than the psp, not to mention a touch screen and back touch pad, along with two analog sticks. Sure it's the same shape as the psp, but what more do you want?

But even then, admialvic is right. Pretty much every console generation recycled things from the previous. What was the big difference between the snes and the nes? More buttons and better graphics. The ps1 to the ps2? Online capabilities...but other than that, just better graphics and a very similar controller.

The recycled content between generations is nothing new, it's been that way since the atari days. I mean, aside from a few exceptions like the ds and wii, since when were "new consoles meaning new everything" the norm?

[admiralvic]

Very little, if anything would change.

Thanks to the popularity of the iPhone, we still would have developers looking at the touchscreen and we probably would still have the Vita as it is now. Furthermore, some developers have said they don't know what to do with the Wii U touchscreen, so it seems like every with the DS / 3DS there are people who have no clue what to do. This isn't too surprising, since not every game makes full use of it or we could live completely without.

So if the DS had never came out, then I suppose the PSP and Vita would have had a better chance at being successful and Nintendo might be in a worse financial situation. Though I can't say touchbased gaming would be all that different.

[SpiralTear]

It's kind of surreal remembering this, considering that lots of gaming publications thought the PSP would murder the DS. I even remember a G4TechTV review using the phrase "a DS game in a PSP world" when talking about the Rayman DS game.

I do think that the lower price and two-screen design caught people's attention. There were some awesome games on DS that had a lot of cool uses of the control tech (even if there were also some games that didn't). I still play Jump! Ultimate Stars on DS to this day.

I'm not sure if Nintendo would have had the same success if the DS didn't have something so drastically different from the traditional Game Boy construction.

[Reeze]

I would never have started playing games. I was kind of a late adopter and was never interested in video games, but my sister got a DS Lite for Christmas. I wanted one more than anything, so I saved up some money and helped pay for one. I spent countless hours on Nintendogs and Animal Crossing: WW. Those were great games.

[Ramon3MR]

How about games like Hotel Dusk, Meteos, Elite Beat Agents and Animal Crossing? Those were sick DS titles.