Topic: Was the DS ever meant to succeed the Game Boy line?

I've been thinking about many what-if questions lately, such as "What if the Zelda trailer at Spaceworld 2000 re-appeared at Spaceworld 2001 instead of Celda (Wind Waker)" or "What if the GameCube had more momentum going into 2001?" . But aside from drifting on and on, I would always love to ask myself, "What if the Game Boy lived on through the DS system?".

I always thought of the original DS as Nintendo's way to distract gamers away from the "other: portable so it could make a "comeback" i (in the form of codename Oxygen. Too bad for Nintendo, it distracted us gamers (including myself) way too much and Oxygen (being the ill-fated yet stylish Game Boy Micro) never really mattered anymore. It was DS, full speed ahead with no looking back, even though the GBA was still along for the ride until 2008/2009 with the DSi system.

Anyways, two questions.

• Was the DS meant to be the successor?
• What if the Nintendo DS was the Game Boy DS?

Leave your interesting/creative comments below!

The following is MY OPINION, NOT FACT, so please don't quote me and complain about me stating my opinion as if it were fact.
I'm glad the DS isn't called the Game Boy DS. It isn't worthy of the name. All of the versions of the Gameboy were great. The DS is...... bleh. The Game Boy had the best versions of Pokemon, Metroid, and handheld Zelda. The DS has the best handheld Mario. I remember this one Megaman game on the Game Boy Advance, the ONLY Megaman game I ever enjoyed....... I tried the one on the DS and was very disappointed. The Gameboy had Kid Icarus, a good Crash Bandicoot game.... Maybe if Nintendo didn't remove the DS slot and allowed classic Gameboy/color games I would get a DSi. Speak of game consoles with cameras, the Gameboy had the Game Boy Camera game. That game was freaking epic.

Question #1: From what I can tell, that's an outright no. The DS was meant to be a gateway into a new "generation" of Nintendo handheld gaming.

Question #2: It would probably be less marketable since it wasn't going with the modern popular company mindset of making new and "hip" things, meaning some of the more casual/experimental titles would never exist (Cooking Mama and Pheonix Wright).

Originally, the two were meant to stand side-by-side, but this was back before it even came out that they said this. It may have been a way to sell more of the Micros...

The original DS was quite clearly an experiment. It took off unexpectedly, so Nintendo ran with it. If, like Sony's PSPGo experiment, it failed, you can be sure the Gameboy Advance would have had a sequel.

So they say, but that was just your usual PR BS, getting their excuses out the door before it failed. There was no reason to have three separate platforms. Either the consumer would pick the DS or the Micro, and Nintendo would then put its full weight behind that choice. I went with the Micro myself. That thing was pure style, though I don't think my eyes could take it anymore.

I'm going to pick up one of those when I go to Japan I think. I haven't been able to play my old GBA games since I have my original DS to my better half.

The optional face plates was a nice touch. I used to take that thing everywhere. Can't really do the same with any form of the DS, those clunky things. My DSi barely fits in my pocket, and then I have to walk around with this uncomfortable and odd rectangular protrusion on my thigh.

Of course, you don't need to wait to get one in Japan. If you find one around your area, Micros are region-free, and it'd give you something else to do on the plane ride there.

They were never very prevalent in Australia, and tended to be very, very expensive. Buying one in Japan at Super Potato or something should result in a very cheap new toy methinks.

There ought to be stores here with awesome names like Super Potato. Japan's so lucky. By the way, if you like RPGs and can read a bit of Japanese, keep an eye out for the Mother 3 Micro. It's probably more expensive than normal Micros, though, and no telling if you'll find one that comes with the game itself.

Oh believe me I have every intention on picking up various RPG and story book games while I'm there I also want to track down Bit Generations (the original art style) games that never were released out of Japan.

Dotstream looks awesome. It's sad that we haven't gotten an Art Style version of that game yet. It looks so great. Boundish, too. I guess they didn't want Art Style games to be too closely based off of recognizable games (Tron and Pong), even though they're clearly full of their own original twists.

I remember Nintendo saying that the GBA was part of a triumverate of consoles. I thought it was a load of rubbish to be honest, any game that could be made for GBA could also be made for the DS. I don't really see why people have difficulty accepting that consoles die. The SNES & the N64 are my favorites, but they're gone. The DS clearly seemed the successor to the Game Boy to me, as for the name I don't think it would have made much difference. I still see the N64 as the successor to the SNES despite the fact it wasn't called the Ultra Nintendo Entertainment System or something.