On January 19th, 2004, Nintendo finally revealed, after months of suspense, the company's new "third pillar" (the first two of course being the GBA and GameCube, at the time) - a portable system with two screens. Then at E3 in May, the bottom screen was revealed to be touch-sensitive, and many of the system's wild new features were displayed. Reportedly, a hundred DS games were already well in the making at the time of the system's unveiling, but fans were boggled - what kind of crazy games could Nintendo come up with that would make use of two screens, touchscreen technology, and a built-in microphone? And furthermore, would their ideas be so impressive as to change the path 3rd party developers took toward actually making cool games for the system?

It sometimes sounds too gimmicky to be true, but the DS is an impressive little system. The dual-screened handheld is already proving itself as the bringer of Nintendo's next wave of gaming innovation, and the company's choice of games couldn't be more perfect for easing players into the strange new world of touchscreen control. For starters, imagine a basic 3D platformer like Super Mario 64. Make the menus touchable and throw in a laptop mousepad-like analog control scheme, and you've got the first step in the big transition, Super Mario 64 DS. The next wave of games don't require the use of the system's many buttons or control pad at all, and instead only use the touchscreen to guide characters through adventures unlike any other gamers have experienced. Some of these, such as Kirby Canvas Curse and Yoshi's Touch and Go, are already wowing fans, and many more are sure to come. The final wave comes in software like Nintendogs and Electroplankton - games that, as Nintendo's president has said, aren't even games. They're entirely new software experiences that even non-gamers can be drawn toward and enjoy. It's our hope that this third wave is where Nintendo's DS will shine and outperform its competition, the PlayStation Portable, which, although it's quite impressive in its own ways, doesn't feature any real new, unexplored gaming technology.

One oft-overlooked, however interesting still, feature of the Nintendo DS is its small microphone that rests just below the touch screen. It just started to see its potential in games where (as odd as it may sound) blowing is an important gameplay mechanic, such as Wario Ware Touched! and Feel the Magic. Nintendogs is the first game on the system to make voice recognition an important part of the gameplay. We hope it inspires even more ways to make gaming more interactive.

For those remaining who are still not sold on the prospects of touchable gameplay, the DS also has many features that appeal to the casual gamer. It comes with a built-in chat program called PictoChat in which you can write or punch in on a keypad messages to send wirelessly to your friends in the room. In fact, the DS is set up for wireless play between as many as 16 players in one room off of just one game card, and finally, Nintendo is ready to enter the online gaming world with the Nintendo DS, and in a very big way. The DS has built-in access to wi-fi online play. If you've got a wireless internet port set up in your house, at school, or at work, you'll be able to play online wirelessly with the Nintendo DS (with games that are designed for it, of course), absolutely free of charge. It's also been announced that the upcoming Nintendo console, the "Revolution", will also connect with the DS wirelessly for both LAN and online play.

The basic features of the Game Boy Advance remain on the DS - L and R triggers, a D-pad, Start and Select buttons, and of course, the A and B buttons. So Nintendo has naturally given the DS backwards compatibility with all Game Boy Advance games. Yes indeed, you're able to play all your Game Boy Advance titles on the Nintendo DS. However, that doesn't mean you can play games from the Game Boy and Game Boy Color era on the new system - those run off an entirely different processor that Nintendo has seemingly decided to discontinue.

Like so many competing game systems before them, the Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable were released in the same quarter and struggled to occupy more of the handheld market than the other right from the get-go. The DS got off to a slower start than the PSP with only a couple of worthwhile launch titles. However, in this case, slow and steady is almost definitely winning the race. After a dry spell not too dissimilar from that just after the GameCube's launch in 2001/2002, the DS saw a string of fantastic releases such as Electroplankton, Nintendogs, Kirby Canvas Curse, and Meteos, while the PSP still lacked any "must own" titles. Sales figures also showed that the DS was on top, most weeks selling more units than the PlayStation 2 and PSP, and some weeks selling more than both Sony systems COMBINED. Currently, it seems it would take a PlayStation release of Final Fantasy VII's scale or a sudden drought of great Nintendo titles for the DS to fall behind, at least to where Nintendo stands in the console race. Bottom line: DS is a major hit, and Nintendo had better take advantage of the leading position they're in.

All in all, we're having a lot of fun with our DSs, and we're not afraid to say that Nintendo is very much a company set on changing the future of video games, and that this system makes plenty of room for such change. The next generation of Nintendo handhelds is certainly looking to be its most brilliant.