Random: Build Your Own Nintendo DS With Joy-Cons And A Samsung Galaxy Z Flip

I mean this is pretty cool tbh

glances back at his DS Lite

glances back at his N3DSXL with an R4 card from said Lite

Imagine getting a phone call on the bus and holding this to your ear.

I have a friend (we are both 40) who is well into this sort of thing. We were in the pub once and he pulls a silver toolbox-style case out of his bag and unfolded it. Inside was an LCD screen, QWERTY keyboard and a Raspberry Pi-powered emulator stacked with ROMs. Just to show off his nerd cred he went on to demonstrate how to play N64 Perfect Dark with a Wii Remote and Nunchuk!

@nhSnork ok?

Instead of closing the 3Ds eshop, Nintendo should had released an vertical grip for switch + 3Ds games on switch

@The_BAAD_Man I'm still not sure how N-Gage owners solved that challenge back in the day.😅

Wait until he finds out about the drift

I mean I just got the Z Flip3, but I don't want anymore trouble with Nintendo after they took my property after I emulated F-Zero GX.

Thought this was the Switch 2 DS prototype.😉

Man what a waste of cash. Not to mention the amount of money it's gonna take to replace those joycons every few months.

@HollowSpectre yeah, not to mention that he will need a joycon charger, as that grip do not provides power for the things.

Oh wow, surreal to see my little reddit post become a news story here. That's really cool.

Anyway I just want to make one quick correction for ya when you said this:

"The Joy-Cons pair easily with the phone via Bluetooth, and you just need to download an emulator for the Switch controls to map to the phone"

That's not actually the case. See all you have to do is pair both Joycon to the phone with it's built in bluetooth pairing, and the Joycon will automatically pair as two halves of a full controller, and the DraStic emulator automatically maps all the controls exactly how you'd want. In the past, JoyCon did not like to pair with smart phones, at least in a way where both can act as two halves of a full controller, so it was pretty cool to see that something at some point changed and now they automatically pair without issue.

Anyway, for those that might actually also have a Z Flip phone (any model) and want one of these, I do sell them on my etsy store for $15, not sure if I can link to it, but you can find my etsy storefront under Gaming Obscurssories.

@HollowSpectre I didn't buy the phone just to make it into a DS lol. I already had the phone, I already had a Switch with Joy Con, and I already had the 3D printer, the idea came to me, so I made it. Its not like I even need it, i have a 3DS, just thought it was a cool thing to create, and turns out it was, at least as far as I'm concerned.

i prefer my galaxy z fold 3 and dedicated phone gamepad(pro controller style, but slides open to wrap around my phone) for emulation.
bigger screens, and pretty much perfect aspect ratio for nintendo DS, 3DS, and any pre-widescreen console.
costs a bit more though.

and pokemon and touch-only games don't need the controller, for touch-only i even have a good stylus(s-pen)

@thedicemaster I can make similar adapters for any modern flipping smartphone. My buddy just got the Fold 3 as well so I could work directly with it to make a similar adapter, though he's been talking about returning the phone for something more like the Flip or the Razr, so I'd have to do it soon lol. Also this is meant more as an alternative to those phone-only controller adapters, this is for people that already have Joy Con and don't want to buy a separate controller just for their phone. Granted, I charge $15 for the adapter, but that's cheaper than any decent phone-only controller.

@MikeDubbz fair enough. I just don't understand the point of phones costing a small holiday. But each to their own!😉

@HollowSpectre I mean I bought the Z Flip 5G on a great sale of about $700 total, which is far less than the latest flagship at the time or now, and I needed a new phone. So for me it wasn't even a question, the Z Flip seemed cool (and it is very cool, I'm not gonna be going back from smart flip phones at this point, I can promise you that), and fit all my needs while falling very comfortably in my budget, so I bought it.

Also, let's not kid ourselves. These are no longer phones, they're pocket computers that just so happen to be able to also make phone calls.

@nhSnork Someone should probably resurrect the NGage name. Buy it from Nokia possibly - since they are not capable of anything meaningful any longer. It was a horrible design but the name was slightly clever. It would go a long way with the current populace I think.

That's pretty dang cool, I always liked the idea of a DS that only the screens close shut, as there just seems like there is so much empty space on the top half of a DS that doesn't look so great when playing (this isn't a problem the wider top 3DS screen).

But it obviously always made sense in regard to just protecting itself when not in use, which I think is a really cool feature of these new folding smartphones in general, how they just naturally protect their screens when not in use.

@MostHandsieBoy When you think about it, it's pretty much the only memorable Nokia phone model name in general. I don't think I could name another Nokia model, I assume they're all just random numbers or something like that.

So really, if Nokia ever wanted to make a name for themselves again, they would be smart to try and make a great modern smartphone and call it the NGage X, it could have an emphasis on gaming, but it wouldn't necessarily need to. The name recognition is what is important, plus games would certainly be playable on it regardless like any other smartphone.

@duffmmann as bad as Nokia might be today I kinda miss their old phones. You could throw one off of a mountain into a running stream and it would still work.

I wish the big phone manufacturers would take the approach of durability Nokia did.

@MikeDubbz my €25 controller is fine for me.
because it can resize it fits all my phone cases, and works in both portrait and landscape.

@MostHandsieBoy depending on what would go with this newly acquired name. I would be, at the very least, curious about a new phone with buttons and a gaming layout. My joke from the previous comment aside, the ergonomics aren't even much of a concern since I personally find modern Android "phablets" just as awkward to hold by my ear and mouth anyway.😆 At least we'd see another tangible shot at making mobile gaming more legit in terms of experience variety, especially in action-heavy genres. I'd still prefer consoles where possible myself, but such a device might well lead me to unshelve some previously tried titles like Black Desert, for one.

As for your comment about old Nokia phones here - boy, do I miss them, too. Ironically, largely courtesy of emulation - but what emulation memories those were! My first smartphone, good old Nokia 3230, saw me through the first Final Fantasy (which deliberately doubled as my own first foray into the franchise as well), while a later owned E61 witnessed my first Fire Emblem experience (Blazing Sword's full Lyn campaign and a good half of the Elliot one). Hence my nostalgia about playing games on a phone even though I couldn't randomly name three native Symbian titles at a gunpoint.😄

@MikeDubbz Agreed. We're obviously way beyond the point of these simply being considered "phones".

It's now essentially a tiny laptop that can make phone calls. I mean, the GPU/CPU power of flagship phones is now ahead of cheaper laptops, it's quite astonishing really.

@thedicemaster Whatever makes you happy. No one is forcing anyone to purchase anything here lol. Side note: I can make landscape grips if I want too. That seems way less interesting to me though as that ceases to utilize the unique nature of these modern flip phones, and at which point, I'd rather just be playing my Switch.

To anyone that does like these neat kinds of trinkets, I make all sorts of fun random 3D printed gaming accessories. I really like my 4 controller N64 holder/display. You can check out my etsy shop, just search for Gaming Obscurssories.

@MikeDubbz Don't worry about it, there's just some weird people on this site.

@nhSnork The actual 3DS and original DS are horrible to hold in your hands for more than 30 minutes, it causes hand cramps and all kinds of pain.

Yeeeah that's cool and all. If you want to use a thousand dollar phone to do what a 7 dollar machine use to. But worse.

@superlativeb Again, I didn't buy the phone just to make it into a DS lol. I already had the phone, I already had a Switch with Joy Con, and I already had the 3D printer, the idea came to me, so I made it. Its not like I even need it, i have a 3DS, just thought it was a cool thing to create, and turns out it was, at least as far as I'm concerned. The fact that people think I specifically got my phone for this or the Joy con for this, or the 3D printer for this, or any combination of the three is so hilarious how you miss the point. This isn't meant to be a selling point for the phone, is was just a fun project I thought to make, and now anyone that happens to have the phone and joy con can instantly turn their phone into a DS if they desire as well.

@duffmmann the Razor was the one I remember most. I never had one of but so many did. The Ngage was a joke from the beginning.

@MikeDubbz ignore the passive aggressiveness you're getting from some people here, bizzare behaviour. You made a cool little project just because you could, and I salute you.

wow, now you can experience the amazing world of Joy-Con Drift in all your favourite DS games too.

@Jokerwolf YMMV, I've owned the dual screen handhelds since 2010, played both for a couple hours at a time, even in bed, and these maladies are still news to me. Pretty sure trying to play the frankensteined device above might tax my hands more.😅

Lovely idea for a flip phone

wrt old Nokias, my fave phone of all time was the N97 Mini. Lovely size and a pop-out hardware keyboard.
Pity the software was awful, even if it had a Google Lens type app.

@nhSnork Well my hands are quite big too so that probably does't help.

i had an idea just like this, except it's a plastic thing that clips on the sides of the switch that allows joycons to connect. Then it creates the illusion of 2 screens to play ds games.

if you expect people to read before contradicting the article or the previous comments, I've given that up already.

Comes free with joycon drift.

@RPGreg2600 The Razor was made by Motorola, not Nokia.

@duffmmann oh yeah, duh 🤦