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Europe Sees Launch of Nintendo DS

Posted by Zonk on from the two-screens,-one-eu dept.

Eurogamer has coverage from last week's launch of the Nintendo DS handheld in the EU. The article covers the improving opinion of the handheld in Europe, and sales are reportedly already going quite well. From the article: "The dual screens were sensibly sized, the touch screen robust and responsive, the stylus well kept, the buttons pretty well distributed, the size and weight of the thing surprisingly comfortable, the list of games as long as your arm and the technical gubbins and service potential far greater than any other handheld." The BBC has details as well.

4 of 35 comments (clear)

  1. My First Handheld by cipher+uk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Its the first handheld i've bought. The touch screen really had me interested. Just thinking of how they could use it. The battery life is great too. Its been lasting a day of a lot of play since i got it.
    Which was one of my reasons for getting it instead of a psp. I wanted a handheld game device. Not a dvd playing, graphic intensive (read: battery hog) handheld. I already have a dvd player and would buy a portable dvd player if i felt the need for one. I doubt the psp will gain the support of the film industry. How many films are actually going to get released on UMDs.
    I'm very happy with its features; wireless multiplayer + single cart multiplayer, touch screen and the microphone. I have an xbox for the more graphic intensive games. When i'm playing a handheld gameplay is much more important.
    Now i'm looking forward to the proposed internet play with Animal Crossing DS.
    My only quibble is the launch games are a bit lacking. Only mario 64 ds and wario touched interested me and wario was sold out.

    1. Re:My First Handheld by UWC · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I had heard that Wario Ware Touched was too gimmicky and to some degree lacked the manic spark of the original one. Until I played it on a demo unit in a store yesterday. If anything, the intuitive nature of the touchscreen-based games makes it even better than the GBA version. I'll probably buy it tomorrow when I buy the Incredibles DVD. It will be a welcome companion to Mario 64 and the Metroid Prime demo. And I might end up getting Yoshi's Touch and Go later in the week.

      --
      Honor Among Slackers. A veri
  2. Re:Finally I can try it out... by bitkari · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That said, I saw the display unit at a local Game store and amazingly the unit was intact!

    This particular store suffers from a constant barrage of youths with their oily clambering hands and scratchy unkempt nails, but still the DS remained in one piece, with no visible scratches on the touch screen, and all controls functioning correctly.

    If it can survive the kind of punishement that only 60 days of teenage rampancy can inflict, then I feel a lot happier about its longevity.

  3. Wow, I was not the only one? by WWWWolf · · Score: 2, Interesting

    From Eurogamer article:

    The only thing it couldn't do was let us play our old monochrome GB copy of Tetris, as the GBA slot only supported GBA carts.

    So I wasn't the only one who has the automatical reaction of playing GB Tetris on any new GB hardware? =) That certainly was the first game I played with my original GB, the GBA and GB Player.

    Due to my personal distinct lack of any and all GBA versions of Tetris, I had to settle for Rampage Puzzle Attack, which indeed had unprecedented picture clarity on this amazing backlit screen.

    There's still one original GB's accessory that I use: the headphones. =) And if I can't find a proper carrying bag for DS soon, I may need to use the original GB bag too (which isn't too good for carrying around GBA/DS games, though...)