It’s been over 12 years since the release of the original DS, a system that would go on to be the second best selling game system of all time. Now it appears as though the consoles life is about to finally end. Although there is no official word from Nintendo, Canadian retailer Video Games Plus announced in tweet (now deleted) that “Nintendo has discontinued production of DS carts worldwide.”
Bad News: Nintendo has discontinued production of DS carts worldwide Good News: VGP has a bunch of EXCLUSIVE DS GAME restocks coming in soon
-VGP Video Games Plus (@VideoGamesPlus_) April 3, 2016
It’s unsure whether the exclusive DS game restocks is just for Video Games Plus or if it could be something similar to a set of Nintendo Selects of DS games.
One thing Nintendo has confirmed is that it won’t be taking in any more repair requests for the original DS due to a lack of parts. Nintendo will still take repairs for the DS lite, DSi, and 3DS systems. Even if the discontinuation is true, anyone who’s been to a Target or Walmart will know that there are giant bins of DS games for sale.
Nintendo has also made Warioware: Touched available for 3DS as part of the My Nintendo awards program. If the original DS games are being discontinued, Nintendo may continue the handhelds legacy on Virtual Console. DS games have already been released for Wii U virtual console, so it’s pretty much already a retro system.
The Nintendo DS is almost twelve years old now, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if the console was discontinued. It’s impressive though that the system has stuck around for this long. There are still many retailers who sell the console used, and some of it’s most popular games still go for a decent price. Although the DS became the console for ton of shovelware games, it had some of the best handheld experiences ever.