The Nintendo DS Crystal Ball

Let me peer into my Crystal Ball of gaming and into the year 2006.

The Game Boy DS, as it will be named before release, will be at around half the sales of Sony's PSP, giving them at around 1/3 the next generation handheld market. At this point, Nintendo will release a re-making of the Gameboy DS called the SNES Classic version. The color scheme will be light gray for the system with a dark purple screen boarder, light purple buttons, and a light purple stylus.

At this time they will also release a SNES Classic series of games that will retail for around $20 a piece. This series will include such hits as F-Zero, Pilotwings, Super Mario World, Super Mario Kart, Super Metroid, Gradius III, Final Fantasy II (IV), and Super Castlevania IV. A second series later in the year will consist of Donkey Kong Country, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Yoshi's Island, Mario Paint, Starfox, Super Street Fighter II, Earthbound, Contra III: The Alien Wars.

The controls will match up to the old SNES versions without compromise (Mario Paint will use the stylus), and anything that was originally multiplayer will now be playable over wireless. Both screens will show the same thing in all games, even in Zelda, Metroid, and Mario Kart where one of them could have been altered to show the map or the secondary item screen.

And the SNES Classic games that sell the best will be the ones that have already been released on the GBA.

I've peered into the crystal ball and seen the future. Now it is certain.

-Wes