I'm actually having fun with the DS now that I'm back on board, but I have to agree its very much a niche item. However, that seems to be the Nintendo story of the last 10 years. Nintendo is once again not helping themselves though. They should have the online aspect set up and ready to go by now. Once again Sony is making them look bad in this area.

The poor software sales are very telling if you ask me. It demonstrates just how little effort third parties are putting into the DS. It will be yet another Nintendo system almost fully carried by Japanese software. Mostly Nintendo with some help from companies like Konami, Sega, Capcom etc. The rest of the stuff will be shovelware like Madden and Asphalt Urban GT along with total crap like Sprung and Tiger Woods. Woods is a lesson in just how poorly DS software can be designed.

I have no doubt that the PSP will slaughter it sales wise, but like the GameCube it will have enough unique titles to make it worth owning. I've unlocked all the mini games on Mario 64 DS but one and I'm having fun playing those until Wario Ware comes out next week. I'm just hoping third parties will actually try and put some thought and effort into their future titles. Looking at the current list of games there doesn't seem to be much worth buying in the next 3-4 months.

Besides Wario next week, Yoshi Touch n' Go and Pokemon Dash (whatever) get released 3/15. Rayman DS comes out the week after along with the Retro Atari Classics (interesting considering old trackball control). Star Wars: ROTS, Polarium and Pac-Pix are all listed as April titles. Glad to see some decent stuff on the horizon. Castlevania DS where are you? BTW Metroid Pinball DS sounds promising.

Well in addition to waiting for regular games, now we could play Palm Powered games...including emulators? AOl IM? Web Browsing?

From Slashdot: According to GamerCentric, Nintendo has licensed Palm OS software although there intentions are not clear. "Well there seems to be some clues about this. "Nintendo had recently licensed Palm OS based PDA software without any details on why they had done it. Now Nintendo sources have revealed that V-Pocket trademark concerns this licensing. E3 will be the first witness of Nintendo's complete line of personal organizer tools for its Nintendo DS." So there is a possibility that we could see a Nintendo device with Palm OS organizer capabilities.
http://www.gamercentric.com/index.ph...ewnews&id=3225

All my prayers have been answered if this is true. Brilliant move by Nintendo. I just hope I can use programs from other Palm OS developers on the DS. I'm sure Nintendo will come up with some good software, but it would be nice if other people could modify their current Palm OS games and apps to work on the DS.

I was gonna get Wario Ware next week, but IGN says you can basically beat it in one sitting and unlock all of the extras in just a few hours.

I'm now waiting for another decently long adventure game for the DS. Hopefully I won't have to wait until Nov/Dec time frame for that to happen.

I wonder if Wario will have sufficient replay to warrant a $35 price tag. I may end up renting this one as well. It sounds like another Feel the Magic. Fun for a weekend, but not something you will play for 40-50 hours.

Yeah, I can't see paying $35 for Warioware. I'll wait for a sale. I'd like to pick it up before the middle of march as I have a long flight. But of course I have Zelda: Minish Cap that I'm saving for that trip anyway.

For everyone waiting for some real software for the DS check this list out from NP...
Upcoming DS games

Advance Wars DS
Age of Empires II: Age of Kings
Air Assault 2
AC: DS
Another
Barnyard
Boktai DS
Bomberman
Brain Twisting Game Vol 1
Cadaceus
Castlevania DS Aria of Sorrow 2
Choro Q DS
Chronicles of Narnia:The Lion the Witch and The Wardrobe
Dragonball Z
Dragon Booster
Dragon Quest Monsters
Dynasty Warriors
Egg Monster Heroes
FINAL FANTASY III
Frogger 2005
Tushigi No Dungeon
Game of Life DS
Goldeneye
Gyakuten Saiban
Harvest Moon
Historical Sim
The Incredibles
Intern Tendo DOkuta
Jam w/ the band
Johnny Rocketfingers
Kim Possible 4
King Kong
Legend of the river king
Lizzie Mcguire
Zelda: Four Swords DS
Madagascar
Mah Jong
Mario Kart DS
Mega Man Battle Network
Meteos
Metroid Pinball *maybe
Metroid Prime Hunters
Minna No Mahjong
Mobile suit Gundam
Monster Rancher
Moonlight Fables
Nanostray
Need for Speed Underground 2
New Mario Bros Game
Nicktoons
Nintendogs
One line puzzle
One piece
Organizer +
Pac N' Roll
Pac Pix
Polarium
Puyo Pop Fever
Quad Desert Fury 2
Updated Pictochat
Pokemon Dash
Rayman DS
scooby doo unmasked
Secret of Mana
Shrek Slam
Shogun Warrior
Shin Megami Tensei
Slime Morimori Dragon Quest
Snowboard Kids
Sonic DS
Space Invaders Revolution
Sponge Bob
Starwars III
Survival Kids (Lost In Blue)
Tak
Texas Hold em
Thats so Raven
Tom Clancy's Slinter Cell: Chaos Theory
Uruseiyatsura
Ultimate Brain, Card, Pocket games
Vandal Hearts
Viewtiful Joe
Winx
World Championship Poker
World Soccer
Yu gi oh
Zoo Tycoon

whew! at least there is advance wars, castlevania, viewtiful joe coming
I know they will be good. Actually alot of these might be promising we will see. updated March 23rd with released games removed

Survial Kids on GBC was GREAT.

I'll be keeping an eye out on all of these, plus there were several titles I had never heard/no idea what they are which could end up good. Definitely a much longer list compared to the list of PSP games that sound appealing to me.

My girl left her DS at my place over the weekend and I've been using it to play Kingdom Hearts this week at work. For some reason, every time I've turned it on today it has a very distinctively different boot-up chime. Anybody else have this?

Is it her birthday. The chime is different on your birthday.

Yes, yes it is. How very subtle.

If you have Feel the Magic, pop it in. The girl at the beginning will tell you happy birthday. I think she mentions holidays as well.

Speaking of Feel the Magic (a game I'm playing even though I despise it at times) I was pretty much stuck on Stage 15 until today. I received my PDA Panache stylus in the mail today and beat Stage 15, 16 and 17 on the first tries with the stylus and the final stage on the third.

So the PDA Panache DS stylus gets a big endorsement from me.

I freaked out when this happened to me. I thought it broke or something. Then I realized what day it was, changed the date in the settings to test it out, and sure enough, the chime was back to normal.

Yeah one of the guys at work yesterday said he beat the entire thing in just over 2 hours, I'm glad now I didn't pick it up. I'm still playing Chokkan Hitofude, and Zoo Keeper for the most part.

On a side note did everyone see the limited japanese Pepsi version? Sweet blue, and the matching case looks cool too. The headphones look just like the Hori ones I imported with Pepsi logo.

The sales figures for January:
DS: 130,000
GBA: 280,000

Here is what my DS screen looks like now. This is from a fall of about 3 feet with the lid closed. It landed directly on the top of the unit. I honestly didn't think anything of it at the time. I didn't seem like a bad fall at all, but when I opened it later I realized I was screwed.

Add me back to the list of former DS owners. No way I drop $150 on another one any time soon. It is really not my day today.

Suck. Can I have your PDA Panache stylus?

I'll think about it.

darkside, seriously consider contacting Nintendo and just tell them what happened. They might hook you up with a new unit for free.

Back in the N64 days, with Mario Party, I broke my controller playing the game rough and Nintendo Fed Exed me 4 new controllers. This was with just straight up honesty, no deception on my part. Nintendo's CS is second to none in this industry.

Afterall, the DS is the razor, the games are the blades...

The 'game' can be beat in 2 hours, but its about going back into it and playing all the mini-games.

Solved my DS problem, but it was a store person that helped me out. The replacement unit has a single stuck pixel on the top screen, but compared to a broken screen I'm thrilled.

Wario Ware Touched has a lot of gameplay beyond just the two hours to beat the game. I've easily played it 10-15 hours already and still have some things to do. I still need to get the gold crowns for two characters and I'm determined to get more than 20 in gnarly mix. Lots of replay on this one. Toy Room is fun as well though some of the stuff is useless.

Being able to hand someone your DS and have the parrot tell them they suck is priceless.

Finished everything on Wario Ware Touched just now.

For getting more than 20 on the Gnarly Mix you get and for getting all the Gold Crowns by getting the flowers on every minigame you get My toy room must be complete because both rooms have flowers by the names now.

The toy room was fun, but you can just think of how much better this should have been. Nintendo could have really put in some cool stuff and some much better minigames. Really Mario 64 has much better minigames than Wario Ware. It was a nice trip down memory lane though as many of the toys date back to my childhood.

Good game, but yes it is short though it does have decent replay potential. It was fun to unlock everything, well almost everything. We will need Wario Ware Twisted to unlock the video.