Nintendo DS Turns 15, Top 10 Best-Selling Games on the Handheld

Nintendo's 7th generation handheld, the Nintendo DS, turned 15 years old today in North America, and will be turning 15 in Japan on December 2, and in Europe on March 11, 2020. The handheld was on the market from 2004 to 2013.

The name for the Nintendo DS comes from its dual-screens. The handheld features two LCD screens in a clamshell design. There were three redesigns for the DS released during its lifespan: the Nintendo DS Lite, Nintendo DSi, and Nintendo DSi XL.

The Nintendo DS sold 154.02 million units worldwide, according to Nintendo. That makes it the best-selling handheld and the second-bestselling video game platform of all time behind Sony's PlayStation 2.

[darthv72]

One of the coolest features I liked about the DS was its ability to download demos from kiosks as well as the wii. Share play is also another good feature. My kids still use that when playing mario kart on trips.

[EddieNX]

The DS is one of the best consoles/handhelds ever. Some serious memories with that thing

[trunkswd]

You are not alone. It sold over 150 million lifetime. Only the PS2 has sold better.

[darthv72]

Not that this changes anything but have you ever wondered what the actual number of people are that buy into a platform? It's never 1:1 as i can attest to you that I have 5 DS units in my house as well as 5 PS2 systems. We know that some will trade up when a newer version of a platform is released. Especially if it is a special edition. but like i said, it doesnt really change things in terms of units sold overall. I was just curious if anyone else wondered about how many people actually buy into a platform.

360 sold like 85 million units but many were replacements, like the PS2 has also seen its share of replacement units purchased and same goes for PS1 or any system where there could be a problem and the consumer decides to just buy another instead of go through warranty service. It's just a curiosity I've had for a long time.

I dont think people are double dipping on Switch units but some could because they have multiple kids in the house (like i did with the DS) but double, triple and even quadruple dippers are a thing. Especially if someone is into collecting the variants in the hardware. I do but i tend to get them in the second hard market which means they were already added to the initial total.