Here's a question: What happens when one of the world's largest electronics companies makes a move to edge its competition out of the top spot in the portable gaming industry? If you're Nintendo, and Sony has made it clear that it wants to crush you with its new PlayStation Portable, you throw a curve ball and try to beat Sony with what you do best: innovation.


Photo courtesy Nintendo of America, Inc.
Nintendo DS is essentially a larger, two-screen game boy.  See more pictures of Nintendo DS.

Nintendo's latest innovation is not a bigger, faster processor. Nintendo's latest foray into the handheld market, a market it practically owns thanks to the legendary Game Boy -- is the DS. "DS" stands for either "dual screen" or "developers' system," depending on which way the wind's blowing, and it's a cross between two Game Boys and a PDA, with a cell phone's messaging function thrown in for good measure. And the DS's new sidekick, DS Lite, has all the handheld glory of the DS plus brighter screens and a smaller, lighter, easier-to-pocket package.

So what's the big deal with the little DS? On the surface, it's just a larger, two-screened Game Boy. However, with its laundry list of handheld firsts, a multitude of possibilities are now open to game developers.


Photo courtesy Nintendo of America, Inc.
The DS


Photo courtesy Nintendo of America, Inc.
The DS Lite

DS Features:

  • Two 3-inch, LCD screens capable of 3-D renderings
  • Touch capabilities, using a stylus or a finger, on the bottom screen
  • Microphone port
  • Two kinds of wireless connectivity, IEEE 802.11 and a protocol proprietary to Nintendo
In the next section, we'll take a look at each of these features.

The Handheld Race
 With the Game Boy and Game Boy Advance reigning as the undisputed champs of portable gaming, one may wonder why Nintendo has chosen to battle its own winning products with this new system, but the answer is simple: competition.

Nintendo once held the top spot in the home-console market thanks to its culture-altering, mega-hit NES; but Sony, the home-electronics giant, made it their mission to knock the company from the mountain top in the early '90s. With Sony's industry-dominant PlayStation and subsequent PlayStation 2, Nintendo saw its once nearly total market share decrease substantially. Sony's secret? -- going after older gamers, particularly males with the type of money needed to purchase games that can cost up to $60 or $70 dollars a pop, with features like DVD playback and games with adult-oriented material. Sony's weapon? -- the compact disc, which it foresaw as the emerging industry standard for media. While the rest of the industry switched from bulky plastic cartridges to CDs in an effort to catch up to Sony, Nintendo lagged behind.

Now, Sony is determined to knock Nintendo from the top of the handheld market, as well, with the PSP, the PlayStation Portable. It boasts graphics on a par with the PlayStation 2 and the ability to support video and audio through a new type of mini disc. Nintendo, unable to compete with the PSP's graphics and Sony's nearly inexhaustible budget, has decided to reevaluate its options and see what it could do better than Sony.