Nope. Never doubted it. Which is why I'm still a Phat user. :)

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Now, understand that I say these things not as a longtime fan of Nintendo, but as someone who still loves the Game Gear and didn't buy a Game Boy product until this century (when I finally caved because of its homebrew scene and retro releases.)

I was one of the few people who actually expected the touch screen (see http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=99371&cid=8480052 ) and I thought it was a brilliant idea. I thought the hardware itself was ugly and shortly after buying it and completing Mario 64 DS, I really wondered if Nintendo had misstepped. The other games available at the time were mostly shallow, awkward experiences like Yoshi's Touch'n'Go and Pac-Pix (but Warioware was brilliant.) It made me wonder if the PSP would succeed where the Game Gear had failed at beating Nintendo on pure specs.

Then Nintendogs came out, and I knew they really had something special. Then Animal Crossing came out and I decided the PSP was toast. The DS Lite was really what did it, but to me it was like a formality.

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I confess that I had little moments of doubt late at night while the game library was taking its sweet time to build. However, that is not what I told anyone else. I was a Phat owner and evangelist from the start.

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I doubted it. I thought the thing was ugly as hell, when wasn't sure when quality games would ever come out for it. I remember the first game I bought for the system was Star Wars Episode III and I was very disappointed with that.

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*Sigh* Well, truth be told, when it came out I was going "WTF?" I had been dissapointed by the Gamecube, (still am, btw)so I wasn't trusting Nintendo back then. But, I decided to buy it, and yeah, I was delightfully proven wrong! Sure, the Wii's got more games coming out right now, but I'm still looking forwards to Contra 4 and Advance Wars: Days of Ruin right now. All I can say is that it's good to be a Nintendo Fan!

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I admit, it seemed to be a big project to start. I mean, having two screens would mean more money to spend, therefore Sony wins?(I was a Sony loyalist at the time.) However, now that I've seen the incredible capabilities of both the Wii and DS, I know that going back to anything else would make me ill. I'd never been able to get a GBA because of said Sony fanboyism, so now that I can finally play GBA AND DS games, I'm a happier person overall.

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First, my sister got a phat DS. I thought it was too confusing, so I declared that I would never buy a DS. Later, in 2006, something struck me about the beautiful, white DS Lite, so I bought it in August '06. It stood up pretty well, but then I saw the Crimson Red and Onyx Black DS Lite a year later. I traded in my white DS Lite for the Black and Red one. I went from a DS opposer to a DS lover!

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I have no problem admitting that I thought having a touch screen on a handheld device was a gimick, and that Nintendo was slowing losing it's mind (after the fiascos of the N64 and Gamecube - which may have had stellar 1st party games, but never made much of a dent with 3rd party games). The two screens didn't phase me though - I had seen that on Game and Watch years before.

And this from someone who has owned an original Gameboy, Gameboy Color, and Gameboy Advance. The PSP looked like the killer handheld, while the DS seemed like Nintendo's last grasp...

Boy was I wrong. The PSP was overpriced (still is) and loaded with ports of PS2 games. The DS on the other hand is loaded with original games, games that aren't afraid to take chances and go in new directions. From someone who has owned a host of handhelds (including Game Gear) the DS is my favorite hands down.

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I never doubted the ds, but was dissappointed when they changed the design from the prototype which was more like the lite. I am pretty sure its not nintendo's fault if there are weak 3rd parties.If they are afraid that their games are going to be neglected for good games, book around good games. Why does my L button always break and I never use it?

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After the complete flop of GBA-to-GameCube link-up (even Nintendo hardly supported it) I figured that designing a console around an extra screen was insane. I brightened up a bit when word of the touch-screen and mic got out, but I still figured that a console based around novelty input devices was going to be a complete disaster - developers just wouldn't know what to do with it, as with the GBA-GC cable.

Well, they certainly showed me, and it made me far more positive about the Wii when it was finally revealed.

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I got the sucker the week it came out. With that hardware combination the possibilities seemed very new ad very exciting. However, I quickly became frustrated; it seemed like it took 10 years for any games that interested me to finally get a release date. Consequently the DS saw the shelf for a year or two, and my GBA saw a lot of action with Advance Wars 1&2 among others. But now their are plenty of games I am back to the point from which I started. I am a 100% DS Fan boy.

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back in the days of the genesis/SNES wars i was a strict nintendo fan boy. i had the NES. i loved my game boy with the black and green screen even though game gear had full color, and it was only SNES for me. i think i was in 6th grade. i got a genesis for christmas that year and i promptly returned it to the store the next day and got a bunch of SNES games instead.

to put it litely, i was a nintendo manic.

then things started to change, MK1 was released and was a AWSOME port (well not arcade good but better than genesis) but it had no blood. this is where nintendo started going down hill. Strike 1

next came virtual boy, yes i bought one. saved my money for the entire summer. Strike 2

after that came the nintendo ultra 64 which was delayed over a year and renamed simply nintendo 64. by this time the one game that hyped the n64, killer instinct had already been ported to SNES even though nintendo said like 10000000 times that doing so was impossible. "the SNES is not powerful enough they said" all the waiting for the n64 only to find out the system had terrible graphics and the games were still carts led me to say screw nintendo. this was strike 3.

i never bought a game boy color, GBA, or gamecube

instead i bought ps1 and ps2 and dreamcast. yes, sega the company i was so against convinced me to spend my money on a dreamcast (they only died due to pirates, folks)

when the DS phat came out, i laughed. the thing was ulgy. i hated it because it was too heavy, was a brick and the buttons were arranged strange. oh yeah the games stunk. the only "good" things was like nintendogs. wft would i want that for?

then randomly my friend lets me play his DS lite. i was inlove. nintendo had redeemed them selfs.
the lite wins everywhere the phat looses and now there is an awesome game library .

so yeah i did doubt the ds but only cuz nintendo had rubed me the wrong way for years. i mean i paid money for a virtual boy. i think thats understandable.

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i didnt have doubts at all. i preordered it and picked it up the day it came out. i had my phat right up until the lite came out. such a great system with alot of really great titles still coming out

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Doubt the DS? Never, never-ever-ever-ever. I am a Britfag who imported a Version 1 Japanese Nintendo DS fat and Super Mario 64 DS (J). May sound a bit better if I didn't know Japanese, but hey. I'm a hardcore DS fan. =P

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My only real times of doubt were during the pre-Kirby/Meteos drought of '05.

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My doubts lasted until Mario Kart came out. Then I read how great the game was, and had some extra cash, so I bought a DS and Mario Kart. Then I went back and picked up a few more games (Phoenix Wright, Kirby, and Meteos) and then was hooked.

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Mega dittos, Blue Falcon. By Christmas 2005, my fears were assuaged.

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I didn't have any doubt; that's why I had mine on pre-order. I was ready for a new why of playing games.

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Never doubted it, nor did I ever know there was any doubt until after it was released. Why doubt it? It's a Nintendo system.

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Yup. I thought the dual screen thing was gimmicky. Still do to an extent. And you've got to admit, there's been a LOT of shovelware on the DS to date. (Hello Spanish For Everyone.) But, once Mario Kart DS came out, things started to change. Nintendo brought over their big franchises and things took off. Granted, most games not by Nintendo still stink. But there are so many at this point that everyone will find a couple of games worth playing.

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