The Nintendo DS, having passed a sales milestone, is looking to carry its momentum into the fall season with a number of recently released titles. Nintendo recently commented on the success of the system worldwide, moving millions of units in less than two years.
The DS launched on November 21, 2004, and has since sold 21 million units worldwide — a rate Nintendo equates to nearly one system sold every two seconds. Nintendo of America’s Senior Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Communications George Harrison further added the Nintendo DS was “North America’s top-selling video game system of any type in June.”
With the DS approaching its third year on the market and with the launch of the re-designed Nintendo DS Lite, a number of first-party titles are still on the menu, including a mix of old and new franchises.
Star Fox Command is slated to launch on August 28, according to Nintendo's website, and will support eight-player dogfighting locally with four-player support over Wi-Fi. In this adventure, the touch screen will allow players to draw their own routes for the mission as they take over bases and advance through the stages. As always, the branching storyline of missions is still intact in the franchise.
Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis has a tenative date of September 25 and looks to take a new spin on the original format. Players will take control of the robotic Mario minis and try to guide them toward an exit — Lemmings anyone? A custom level creation will allow players to trade and even post on Wi-Fi.
Touch Generations, the developer behind the likes of Brain Age and Nintendogs, will lead the fall lineup with Clubhouse Games to be launched on October 9. The family-friendly cart will feature more than 20 classic board, card, and party games and will feature multiplayer and Wi-Fi connectivity. Checkers, darts, billiards, and card games are among the number of activities included in Clubhouse Games.
Nintendogs will hit the system once again on October 16 with its newest iteration, Nintendogs: Dalmatian. The new version will allow players to select the previously-hidden dalmatian straight from the start and will eventually allow about 20 breeds to be selected after unlocks.
On October 23, Magical Starsign will hit the dual-screened system. Originally titled Magical Vacation, the game will host up to six players in a science-fantasy adventure based on the power of magic. A player will be able to link with five other players to explore dungeons together in RPG format.
October 30 will launch two new spin-offs of existing franchises. The Pokemon universe expands with the release of Pokemon Ranger. In this adventure, Pokemon trainers are substituted with ranchers — lassos are thrown at wild Pokemon and by encircling them with the touch-screen, they become tamed and aid you in battle.
Article comments
1 - dadako
looks like a great lineup, was hoping for diddy kong racing sometimes soon though ;)
a few errors in your post:
Magical Starsign.
Originally its titled Magical Vocation, as in job. not Vacation as in holiday. Japanese is random at the best of times.
Yoshi's Island 2 is the N64 game, even though this one will share the snes art format instead of the rendered format the N64 had, I'm sure it will be called yoshi's island 3...
anyway. Great read.