Nintendo DS — Two Screens and a Stylus

The Nintendo DS was released in North America on 21 November 2004, at $149.99. That was its first launch anywhere: Japan followed eleven days later, on 2 December 2004, at ¥15,000. Nintendo's IR data likewise gives the DS's first release as 21 November 2004, in the Americas.

That order was the reverse of the Game Boy in 1989, which reached Japan a little over three months before North America. Ten days after the DS launched in Japan, on 12 December 2004, Sony's PSP went on sale there.

A third pillar

According to English Wikipedia, Nintendo announced the DS in January 2004 as an experimental third pillar alongside the Game Boy Advance and the GameCube, and showed a prototype at E3 in May 2004.

On 7 October 2004 Nintendo showed working DS hardware in Japan. According to GAME Watch, it presented five of its own titles for the Japanese launch, with third-party games bringing the total expected by the end of the year to 14.

At the same event, president Satoru Iwata stressed that the DS could be played without any prior knowledge, and argued that intuitive touch control, free of the controller shape that had held since the Famicom, would narrow the gap between beginners and experienced players.

Two screens and a touch panel

PC Watch's launch-day report described the hardware:

Built into the console was PictoChat, a chat program for messaging other DS units nearby over the wireless link. The name DS stands for Dual Screen.

English Wikipedia credits later games such as Nintendogs and Brain Age with drawing in people who had not played video games before.

A week, and four days

According to The Register's report of 22 December 2004, the DS took a week to pass 500,000 units in the US and four days in Japan, and by the time of writing had passed one million in each country. Nintendo World Report said more than 500,000 had sold in North America during Thanksgiving week, and that Nintendo expected to sell one million in North America alone by the end of 2004.

154.02 million, most of them redesigns

Nintendo IR's total covers the whole DS family, including the DS Lite, DSi and DSi XL.

Subtracting those leaves about 18.79 million for the original DS of 2004. In numbers, the DS's reach came mostly from the redesigns that followed from 2006. According to English Wikipedia, the DS Lite launched in Japan on 2 March 2006.

Year by year, too, the peak came several years after launch. Nintendo IR's regional data gives these worldwide figures (Nintendo's fiscal year runs April to March):

Both hardware and software peaked in the year from April 2008 to March 2009, more than four years after launch.

By region, hardware sales were 32.99 million in Japan, 59.93 million in the Americas and 61.10 million elsewhere, and software reached 948.76 million worldwide. In hardware, that is more than the Game Boy, whose 118.69 million includes the Game Boy Color. For the comparison with the more than 160 million that Sony Interactive Entertainment gives for the PS2, see PlayStation 2.

Nintendo's next big turn was the home console Wii, which launched in North America in 2006, two years after the DS. For the company, see Nintendo; for the wider story, the game consoles timeline.