Shouldn't it be six years (since it launched in December 2004)? Unless one of the years wasn't magical.

You could argue that the first year wasn't all that magical.

Check your facts, the DS launched in November 2004, not December... unless you're referring to Japan.

You are right, I was  mixing up the North American and Japanese release dates. Still six years though.

You're right, it was an oversight that has now been corrected.

I walked in the snow to get the original DS back in january of 2005.

Nothing special about my story. The DS was not a "must own" system like the Wii was and was easy to get. I just went the a GameStop in the mall on launch day to get the system, I only had enough money to get one game and chose Super Mario 64 DS. I didn't like the controls, but still enjoye it. Like Pedro though, I ended up spending more time on the mini-games and loved most of them.

The DS made a VERY poor first impression on me.  The Virtual Boy is the only Nintendo system that made a worse one.

The DS launched with a re-release of an N64 game as its ONLY first party launch title.  And it also had a demo of the Metroid FPS I never wanted them to make that seemed to be designed specifically for people that didn't like Metroid.  It also had such a small amount of games that despite having a several month head start over the PSP, the PSP had more launch games than the DS had accumlated in total by that point.  The early touchscreen usage was also very embarassing and poorly implemented exposing the feature as a silly gimmick.  It was clear as day that Nintendo had no actually planned ideas of significance for it when they came up with it.

The DS's first year was just a complete and utter disaster.  The DS seemed like the sucker's system at first in that only a complete tool would buy one for the priviledge of buying Super Mario 64 again - only with shitty controls!  I never in a million years would have thought that it would become Nintendo's most successful system EVER.  It is an outright miracle the damn thing wasn't in bargain bins by the end of the first year.

Though thinking back I've never really been all that impressed with the DS at all.  It clearly improved after that first rocky year and it is certainly a perfectly acceptable system worthy of being successful.  But I don't really have any special memories of it.  There aren't any games for it that I would consider memorable favourites of mine.  On the GBA I loved Minish Cap and the Metroids.  But on the DS the Metroid and Zelda games are TERRIBLE.  NSMB felt off and it was NSMB Wii that really got it right.  The best DS games seem to be sequels to GBA games and as a result they tend to all blur together in my mind.  The system has tons of great games but seems to lack truly special games that would be remembered as absolute classics 20 years from now.  I think this is the result of an over-dependence on sequels and franchises.  We've got Pokemon and Castlevania and Advance Wars and Mario & Luigi and they're all great series but we don't have the groundbreaking early titles in those series that stood out because they were fresh and exciting.  You're getting well crafted games with tons of polish but with no real surprises.

Haha, and here I thought I had to work hard in order to get a DS. That was a fun story, Karl! At least you got Mario Kart DS :)

You should have got a FREE DS out of that! An employee just chunked a game at your face!

Today's story is great. I remember one of my friends got Sprung for sh*ts and giggles, and I thought it was hilarious. In fact we even joked that Ubisoft's representative in Brawl would have been the guy from Sprung, with his attacks being to hit on the female characters.

Here's the link if anyone hasn't read it yet:
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/feature/25436

I got my DS at midnight - I was the only one at my Walmart store in line to get one.  Kinda sad.  (This "Only one in line at midnight" was repeated for the DSi and DSiXL, although, by this time, I was at a different store.  I wonder if anyone will be there for the 3DS?)...

There wasn't much hype for the DS, and the DSi and DSi XL were just revisions (and thus not as much demand, especially for the XL). The 3DS, on the other hand, has been getting tons of publicity from fans and the press and I expect it to de in much more demand.

My first DS memory was playing Mario Kart on my brother's Phat and thinking I would go crosseyed from trying to watch 2 screens. Ended up holding off because I heard the Lite was coming and bought that on launch day.

Didn't pick up the DS on day 1, but you can be sure that I'll get myself a 3DS and Super Street Fighter IV 3D as soon as possible.

Andy, Aaron both of your stories were great! The DS launch party, in particular, looked really fun!