Nintendo DS Turns 15, Top 10 Best-Selling Games on the Handheld - Sales
by William D'Angelo , posted on 06 January 2020 / 7,624 Views
Nintendo's 7th generation handheld, the Nintendo DS, turned 15 years old today in North America, and will be turned 15 in Japan in December, 2019 and in Europe on March 11, 2020. The handheld was on the market from 2004 to 2013.
The name for the Nintendo DS comes from its dual-screens. The handheld features two LCD screens in a clamshell design. There were three redesigns for the DS released during its lifespan: the Nintendo DS Lite, Nintendo DSi, and Nintendo DSi XL.
The Nintendo DS sold 154.02 million units worldwide, according to Nintendo. That makes it the best-selling handheld and the second-bestselling video game platform of all time behind Sony's PlayStation 2.
The handheld sold 52.78 million units in the US, according to VGChartz estimates, 51.84 million units in Europe and 32.98 million units in Japan. Breaking down Europe sales even further, the Nintendo DS sold 12.96 million units in the UK, 8.53 million units in Germany and 10.47 million units in Japan.
954.69 million games were sold for the handheld. New Super Mario Bros. was the best-selling game for the DS with 30.80 million units sold. Nintendogs is the second best-selling game on the platform with 23.96 million units sold.
The kart racing game, Mario Kart DS, ranks third in sales with 23.60 million units sold, followed by Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day with 19.01 million units sold. The sequel to Brain Age, Brain Age 2: More Training in Minutes a Day, is the seventh best-selling game on the DS with sales of 14.88 million units sold.
There are a three Pokémon games that are in the top 10 best-selling DS games list. Pokémon Diamond / Pearl Version is in fifth place with 17.67 million units sold, Pokémon Black / White Version is in sixth place with 15.64 million units sold, and Pokémon Heart Gold / Soul Silver Version is in eighth place with 12.72 million units sold.
The social simulation game, Animal Crossing: Wild World, is the ninth best-selling game on the DS with 11.75 million units sold. The platform game, Super Mario 64 DS, rounds out the top 10 with 11.06 million units sold.
View the complete list of the top 10 best-selling Nintendo DS games below:
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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When all's said and done I expect Switch to also have a top 10 (and more) entirely over 10 million
How many so far? I know Mario Kart, Smash, Odyssey, BotW are all above 10 million and Pokemon Sword/Shield will be above ten million pretty shortly if it isn't already (last I heard was 6 million.) Is that all of them?
Those software numbers are insane. All of the top ten are 10+ million sellers. Also, it's strange to see a Nintendo handheld that doesn't have a Pokémon game as the best seller...
I still remember the E3 when the DS was unveiled along side the PSP and many "experts" were saying Nintendo's dominance in the hand held market was over......154 million units later.....
Except the first spot, MK8 could beat all of them.
The DS has so many stellar hits, it's ridiculous: Pokemon Black/White and Pokemon HG/SS, Megaman ZX, Castlevania Portrait of Ruin, The World Ends With You, Sonic Rush, Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes, GTA Chinatown Wars, rereleases such as Megaman Zero Collection and Chrono Trigger...
Castlevania and Advance Wars.
I enjoyed Pokemon D/P with my wife and played a lot of MKDS, but my DS eventually became a Dragon Quest machine when IV, V, and VI released on it.
