The top 10 DS defining moments in 2006

As any military historian will tell you, the final victory is rarely gained in a straightforward fashion. Rather, the wavy lines of control shift around as battles are won and lost.

Certainly 2006 started as a fierce debate between the advocates of DS and PSP concerning their relative sales figures. That discussion is now academic, thanks to the entrance of DS Lite. The quality of the games played its part in the success of DS too, and there's certainly plenty to look forward to in 2007.

But it wasn't a seamless performance from Nintendo, with confusion over the release dates of too many key titles. To that extent, the company needs to make sure it doesn't get obsessed with Wii. The war's not over yet.
Top 10 DS defining moments of 2006

Nintendo DS TV ad campaign There must be a law of advertising that says a first campaign will be crap. It happened with Sony's Society Against PlayStation and Microsoft's bizarre arty Xbox ads, and in keeping with the trend came Nintendo's DS 'In Touch with Original Comedy' sponsorship of Channel 4 programmes. It began in Carry On mode with a selection of woman, often middle-aged, asking young men if 'They could touch it?'. This was followed by the camera panning down to groin level, finally demonstrating a shot of Metroid Prime Hunters or some such. Thankfully, the rise of the mass-market Touch Generation campaign eliminated this rubbish. There was even a brief halcyon period in the summer where the Trauma Centre ads coincided with the Green Wing comedy.
Movie tie-ins It goes without saying that whenever a multi-million dollar film is put into production, there's usually a games company trying to ride on its marketing coattails. The problem is that games often take longer to make than films do, so by the time a deal's signed there's rarely the opportunity to make a good job of development. Still, thanks to the DS' interesting hardware features 2006 has seen some gamemakers make the effort. Even if they didn't quite pull off masterpieces, we enjoyed playing Pirates of the Caribbean and Monster House, and Cars had its moments. But we could have done without Alex Rider: Stormbreaker and the risible Superman Returns.
DS release dates went haywire While winter has always been the key season for game sales, in 2006 a surprising amount of DS games got shunted into 2007. Nintendo was the worst offender, with Star Fox Command, Actionloop and Mario Slam Basketball – all originally 2006 releases – getting pushed back. It wasn't the only miscreant by a long chalk, however, with Konami another major laggard, switching all of its key titles such as Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, Pro Evolution Soccer 6, Steel Horizon, and Lunar Knights into 2007. We also await the late arrival of Rising Star's Contact, Eidos' Bionicle Heroes, CDV's Panzer Tactics and Ubisoft's Rayman Raving Rabbids.
PC strategy games come to DS You'd think PC strategy games designed for 1280 by 1024-pixel resolution monitors wouldn't make an easy transition to the 160 by 240 pixel DS. But what do you know – following on from the successful porting of medieval tactical battler Age of Empires to DS, an army of developers decided that the touchscreen / stylus combo was exactly what was required for a handheld port of their strategy games. And so EA is bringing us Sim City, Theme Park and probably even Spore, while Ubisoft will supply The Settlers, and Sid Meier promises the granddaddy Civilization. Well, just maybe.
Developers fell in love with DS We learn how far we've come by looking back at the road traveled, and it's been a remarkable journey since 2005 when gamemakers scratched their heads at what they were going to do with a touchscreen and stylus. Now every developer worth its salt is setting up a DS division, with top class talent such as Bioware (Knights of the Old Republic), Climax (MotoGP) and Microsoft-owned Rare hard at work on debut DS fare for 2007. Following the trend, Disney-owned outfit Buena Vista has also created a brand new studio, Fall Line, dedicated to Nintendo.
Expanding DS homebrew delighted the hardcore While it's not being billed as the console saviour some label the equivalent produce on PSP, even seeing any homegrown software on a locked-up Nintendo platform like DS is worth marvelling at. As on Sony's handheld, dedicated gamers have been exploring old titles under emulation on DS long before any official downloadable service has arrived, but more interesting are the stacks of interesting creative ideas the homebrew scene is turning out. Whether you want to read classic books on DS or simply play brilliant old point-and-click PC adventures, you can start here.
DS went pink Nintendo's prediction that the pink DS would be 'the perfect accessory for those dark winter days' smacked of the sort of girl gaming tokenism some hoped the industry had left behind. On the other hand, backed by the claim that over 40 per cent of German DS owners are women (and that was before the 27th October launch of the pink DS), as well as the success of the Touch Generation campaign, the DS is certainly becoming a gaming device that women feel happy owning and playing. If a change of colour (plus the seemingly obligatory copy of Nintendogs) further improves the situation, that's even better.
Pokemon returned in Diamond and Pearl It might seem overly pretentious to claim the third most important thing that happened in the DS world in 2006 is one that hasn't happened in Europe yet (and probably won't until the summer of 2007), but that's the way of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl. The fourth version of the pocket monster phenomenon offers 107 new critters to get to grips with, plus a major new feature – the ability to go online and trade, collect and battle against other trainers. The Japanese certainly seem to enjoy the experience, with over four million copies already sold since its 28th September release.
The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass announcement Announced by Nintendo president Satoru Iwata during his keynote address at the 2006 Game Developers Conference in March, The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass will undoubtedly be most high profile DS game released in 2007. Positioned as a sequel to GameCube's The Wind Waker, The Phantom Hourglass will see Link travelling between various island-based dungeons in a steam boat equipped with cannons. So far only the US date has been revealed: 15th October. Key features will see heavy use of the touchscreen to control Link's movement and solve puzzles, while microphone support and a head-to-head Pac-Man-like multiplayer mode are also promised. Zelda's specs alone inspired rival game designers to scurry back to their drawing boards.
DS Lite launch If DS was already a success prior to the launch of the redesigned DS Lite, afterward the 23rd June it became a phenomenon. Ten per cent shorter and 25 per cent thinner, overall the new version was 20 per cent lighter too. Perhaps more important for gamers were the brighter screens and the longer, chunkier stylus. When it launched in Japan, 550,000 were sold during the first month and 700,000 during the second. When it launched in the US, 136,500 units were sold in two days. During the ten days following its European launch, Nintendo announced it had sold 200,000 units. And demand is still rising, with European gamers buying 515,000 DS Lites in one week in December, making DS the fastest selling console in European history.