Nintendo DS: Anyone have one/tried it yet?

[BuildItYourself]

Has anyone tried the new Nintendo DS? I saw it a couple of weeks before launch and I loved it. It was unbelievable. It had (has) everything I have always wanted in a portable.

Unfortunately, buying it wasn't an option until after November 21. Anyways I finally got my hands on it and I love it. Has anyone else tried it/bought it?

I hate the stupid Metroid demo but I got Super Mario 64 DS and I love it. Graphics are unbelievable and the sound beats the (BLEEP) out of the GBA SP. The battery life is awesome, but charging takes so long... Sleep mode is definitely a plus and it barely wastes battery. I fully charged my DS, put it in sleep mode, and left it like that overnight.

In the morning I turned it off and started charging again. It only charged for 5 minutes before the battery was full again, whereas a full charge takes about 3 1/2 hours.

The Backlit LCD screens look beautiful, much better than anything Nintendo has ever used before. I put it next to a GBA SP and put the same game in both. There is a HUGE difference, even though it's the same game/same image.

Buying it was probably the toughest part. Once I had sufficient funds I had to go to 4 different stores before I got my hands on the second-to-last one. When I went back the next day for another game, I saw a sign up saying the DS was out of stock and wouldn't be in until mid-January.

[BuildItYourself]

Wireless is probably the best feature, but it also serves as an excellent way to finish off a weak battery. The green light on my DS was flickering between red/green (they do that when the battery starts getting weak) and wasn't even solid red, but wireless finished it off in 3 min. When the battery is weak like that it usually still lasts about another 45 min.

I took it to GameStop and used wireless with the DS demo unit. It worked flawlessly, and I was able to get SM64 to download to the demo unit.

PictoChat is another story. I have had trouble getting DSs to recognize each other, even when they are in the same chat room.

Well there you have it, my (rather lengthy) thoughts on the DS. Apart from the PictoChat bug, it's great and I can't wait to see how things go with it.

[PacNW CE]

my biggest concern is the quality of games. GBA games seem to be kiddie games more or less. Correct me if I am wrong, but I ain't into mario brothers 15. Outside of zelda and metroid, what will nintendo and friends bring to the platform that will make it superior to the PSP?

[BuildItYourself]

Hmm, depends on your defenition of what a "kiddie" game is. The upcoming games are fine with me though. Check out ds.ign.com They have loads of info, including upcoming games.

[BuildItYourself]

The game "cartridges" are tiny!

[bob05]

It looked cool when I played a demo unit, good graphics. Seemed a little big though.

[BuildItYourself]

It looks big, but I think it's fine. It fits in my pocket and feels more like a real console controler. I hate the SP and the original GameBoys because the buttons are too close. It weights about the same as a digital camera (or at least, as much as my digicam, fuji finepix A330). Some sites report that you get a cramp when you hold it up for too long but I don't.

EDIT: I made a super cheesy video of the DS in action. It was made with a web cam and looks so unproffesional, trying to hold in laughter about it's stupidity may be lethal. Should I post it? it's 320 KB w/ audio.

[germanNiklas]

sure :)

hm im thinking what will be better, sony psp or nintendo ds

[Dennis Bacon]

I picked up a DS on release date, I was rather dissapointed in the way they changed mario, if they would have left it the same as the 64 version it would have been a lot better, metroid will be cool when the full comes out, Madden 2k5 is fun but so hard to see whats going on due to the small screen. I'm not much of a console gamer at all, but I do a lot of overnighters in hotels and stuff cuz of work so its nice to have around just for somethin to kill the time, word is that someone is making a server system so we can play DS games online connecting to the net through a wireless router, so that might be sweet when they do that, all in all it's cool however i think it could have done without the touch screen and been able to sell well on just the graphics alone cuz honestly the touch screen is more of an annoyance than anything... i'd rather have a joystick right there just like the N64 controller

[BuildItYourself]

I'm not trying to sound like a worrywart or anything, but don't wmv files carry info about the author of the file?