About The Nintendo DS (NDS) Handheld

The Nintendo DS handheld system was released by Nintendo in 2004 and was another breakthrough for gaming as a whole. The system featured a clamshell design similar to the Game Boy Advance SP, this time having two separate screens. The bottom screen was used as a touchscreen, while the top showed the gameplay video.

The term DS stands for developers’ system or dual screen.

The NDS featured a built in microphone and wireless functionality, in some emulating other features and tech seen in popular mobile devices at the time.

The Nintendo DS was able to display 3D games in crisp visuals, eventually leads to many Nintendo 64 games being ported to it. The DS paved the way for the resurgence in popularity of handheld gaming.

The Nintendo DS was originally intended to serve as a complement to the Game Boy Advance family of systems and the GameCube, however due to it having backwards compatibility with GBA games and very solid sales numbers, it eventually surpassed the Game Boy series of handhelds entirely.

In 2006, Nintendo released the Nintendo DS Lite which featured a slimmer more compact design with brighter screens and more battery life. Then years later in 2008, the Nintendo DSi was released, again featuring another redesign with some different hardware improvements and features.

The DSi lacked compatibility with GBA games and a few DS games that used the GBA slot. Finally, in 2009, the final iteration of the system was released, the Nintendo DSi Xl which was a larger version of the DSi.

Over the lifetime of the DS, over 154.02 million units were sold. This put the DS at the top of the sales charts for Nintendo and of handheld gaming entirely, being the best selling handheld console to date.

The DS was home to many great games, some of which were The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass, Animal Crossing: Wild World, WarioWare Touched!, Pokemon Black & White, Chrono Trigger (originally released for the Super Nintendo), and tons more!

The DS was sold in stores until 2014 when the Nintendo 3DS fully took its place.

How To Emulate The Nintendo DS

Nintendo DS emulation has come a long way over the years and these days is in a very mature state. There are a few different options for NDS emulation, one of which is to use RetroArch and install the RetroArch Nintendo DS core DeSmuME.

This is one of the simpler options aside from downloading and installing the standalone version of the DeSmuME emulator itself.