Now that the Famicom support is discontinued you’ll probably want to not play it too much as to preserve its mint condition. Luckily you can still play the games on your DS, thanks to the Cyber Familator cart. Sure you could just emulate the games but it doesn’t hold quite the amount of street cred as walking around with the original cartridge. Although the Famicom and NES have different cart shapes you will be able to buy a converter for all your NES playing needs. No word on the cost, but it most likely won’t make it out of Japan.

via Technabob

A couple of days ago we did a piece featuring the special edition DS Lites – well news is in that these two systems will not be making their way to the UK or Australia. Sure they can be imported but really Nintendo, this isn’t good enough.

via Kotaku

The Japanese have gone crazy over the new DS TV tuner. At the mere opportunity to pre-order the tuner, enough people rushed to Nintendo’s site to crash the server. After restarting the server, pre-orders sold out in seconds.

If I worked at Nintendo of Japan, I’d fear for my life if the rumors of a updated DS turn out to be true. I wonder what it would feel like to drown in money?

via Kotaku

Boy do Nintendo like their special editions. Fitting really, because we do too. The big N are offering up not one but two special edition Nintendo DS bundles for the holidays. The first is the gold edition that will be bundled with Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. The second is the metallic pink edition and that will be bundled with the Best Friends version of Nintendogs. Best of all these aren’t just your regular color variations, but also will feature the Zelda and Nintendogs logo on the cover. They will be available on November 23rd for an expected price of US$150.

via Engadget

It has been said that David Bowie inspired generations - and continues to do so. One gamer must have had a case of the Bowie-itis when she lovingly crafted this Ziggy Stardust themed Nintendo DS case. Now if only she set up an Etsy store.

Please excuse me while I wail along to “Life On Mars”.

via DS Fanboy

While we reported a week or so ago that Nintendo were not planning to release a successor to the DS anytime soon, there are rumors abound that they already have an update of the DS Lite ready to go. Supposedly the big N is just waiting for Lite sales to cool off a bit before they reel you all back in.

The redesign is rumored to be slimmer thanks to the loss of the GBA port, will feature bigger screens and include some built in storage. Presumably it will house some more internal RAM so that the Opera browser will work, but there is no news on that yet.

via Engadget

This week is packed with releases for most systems, and the DS is no exception. The standouts are Contra 4 and Cooking Mama 2, but Horsez 2 might be a creeper. Check after the jump for a full country specific list.

(more…)

There has been much talk of a next-gen handheld coming out of Nintendo soon, due to their love of 4 year cycles. President Satoru Iwata has killed speculation though, stating that he aims to extend the functionality of the DS before planning a new console. He explained the need for console cycle change by saying:

“Whenever we have developed one hardware system, we start to discuss what we should do with our next hardware. In the past, we had a kind of common sense understanding of the video game industry’s platform cycles, like, say, 5 years for home consoles and a little less time for portable devices. I’m quite doubtful that such a notion of platform cycles can be applied in the future.”

The jury is still out on what new functions the DS is likely to acquire.

via DS Fanboy

Those of you brought up on good old-fashioned point-and-click adventure games will be excited to hear that Runaway: The Dream of the Turtle is making its way to the Nintendo DS. The game is looking very cinematic and a perfect fit for the DS. You can check out the making of video here or look after the jump for a couple more screens.

(more…)

On October 12, a group of 381 people set the world record for the number of people playing a Nintendo DS in one area at one time. The event was hosted by Nintendo and children’s magazine K-Zone, and supervised by an official Guinness adjudicator.

Something tells me that if Gabe and Tycho wanted to, they could easily organize the breaking of this record at PAX in 2008. What do you think, guys?