Comment: Nintendo's ugly duckling grows up
When the Nintendo DS was shown to the public for the first time, both vocal fanboys and many media correspondents who should have known better were quick to dismiss it as large, clunky, ugly and most of all, a gimmick. It was viewed by many as a rushed and desperate attempt by Nintendo to claw back some attention from Sony's PSP; at best, a stopgap Virtual Boy style curiosity that would fill in the gap before the arrival of a "proper" new handheld platform, unofficially dubbed Game Boy Advance 2.
Right up to the launch of the device, analysts were down on its prospects, swayed - as they assumed consumers would be - by the power and shiny design of the PlayStation Portable. Even though journalists and analysts alike hedged their bets to some extent, the tone of their comments on the DS made it clear that they expected the PSP to do to the DS what the PlayStation had done to the N64.
Today, the final figures from the first year of the life of the Nintendo DS came in, and it would appear that a staggering 13 million people around the globe have disagreed with that assessment. In Japan, well over a million people bought a DS in December alone, and over a million units of the newly released Animal Crossing: Wild World flew off shelves in a fortnight. Here in Europe, where 3.5 million units of the console have been sold, Mario Kart DS has sold 800,000 copies since it was launched in November.
Even looking past the sales figures to simple critical reception, for many people compiling a list of their favourite games of the year, DS titles have flooded the top ten. Speaking from a personal perspective for a moment, this year would have been a far poorer one in gaming terms without the likes of Mario Kart DS, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Castlevania: Dawn of Souls and Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan to brighten up every journey - be it to the other side of the planet or simply to the bathroom.
Put simply, 2005 has been the year of the Nintendo DS - and while in 2006 the handheld market is likely to be overshadowed in the headlines by the arrival of PlayStation 3 and Revolution, the software release schedule suggests that the best is yet to come for the DS.
Animal Crossing hasn't even been launched in Europe yet, and nor have either of Nintendo's "brain training" games, which have sold over a million units each in Japan. For the immense casual gaming market which Nintendo has cornered with the DS, there are more brain training games on the way, a range of travel phrasebooks which will speak selected phrases in foreign languages for you, and there's even talk of "Nintencats". For the more hardcore gamers, the likes of Metroid, Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda and a new 2D Mario platformer are DS-bound.
All of this praise for the DS has a point; two, in fact. The first is that the DS provides perfect evidence for the argument that more innovation in videogaming will bring in new audiences. The second, perhaps more relevant, point is that the success of the DS needs to be put in context alongside the incredibly tough environment experienced by other platforms at retail last year. At a time when almost everything else was in decline, Nintendo's star rose - doing much to save the bottom lines of some retailers and perhaps even publishers in the process. It may be doing its utmost not to compete directly with Sony and Microsoft, but we cannot forget that Nintendo remains a potent force in the industry - and 2005 is perfect proof of that fact.