nintendo has always done an amazing job at bringing people together through their games and consoles, but i fear it'll never be as good as it was during the reign of the nintendo ds handheld family of consoles.

from 2004 all the way into 2017, nintendo had the most phenomenal run for the ds, remodeling and reinvisioning the system 10 times over those 13 years. and as someone who grew up with some model of ds attached to their hip at all times, i can say that over my 24 years of living i've never felt as much unity with other as i have when it came to the ds.

some of my fondest memories of elementary/middle school were field trips, not necessarily because of where we would go, but because of how we'd spend our time on the way there. that was when everyone, wether you knew them all well or not, would bring their ds onto the bus to pass the time, and it always made the trip more exciting than the destination. i have countless memories of playing mario kart or mario party (and even the god awful call of duty ports) with other classmates via download play, or hopping onto one of the crowded pictochat servers where people were talking or drawing and the messages would go faster than you could read. sometimes one of them would get on there and confess their crush to someone specific anonymously, and you'd always try to look over the seats to try and figure out who the sender could be. i have pictures on my old dsi of me with friends and also with kids i hardly ever spoke to. and as an extremely nuerodivergent child who adored nintendo and my ds, that was the only time i ever felt like i fit in with the group, and the only time i never felt like talking about my interest was met with disapproval or silence. it helped me (and a lot of other kids present, i'm sure) fit in and feel "normal" when we usually never could. thinking back on it now feels like i'm under a warm blanket... it reminds me of a very pure and innocent time that i wish i could go back to every now and then.

not everything completely changed as i got older though, because when the 3ds came out, it felt like living that all over again. even though growing up meant a lot less people would bring their 3ds to school or to social events, there still were many times i played games with my friends after school. but as nice as that was, i have even fonder memories of taking my 3ds to conventions or on vacation with me and seeing that beautiful green light start blinking. the 3ds took that unifying feeling to a different level with streetpass, making me feel connected with strangers more than a lot of people i knew personally, and it never felt like it was in a weird way either. passing someone also carrying their 3ds and making eye contact and acknowledging each other with a smile or a wave felt so natural, so wonderfuly human, more than a lot of interactions feel these days. it felt like everyone, no matter how old, had the same childlike giddiness you feel when making a new friend. it honestly made me want to get out even more, and i kind of wish i had been a little bit older when the 3ds was at it's peak just so i could've experienced it even more. to this day i still hold the 3ds very close to my heart and i carry mine around often, and a little part of me still hopes to see that little green light pop back up eventually.

maybe it's just specifically me and the way i grew up so invested in video games, but i've ALWAYS felt like the ds was such a titular part of bringing family, friends, and even strangers together in a really unique and wonderful way, and i'm so thankful to my younger self for capturing a glimpse of these moments. even if someone wasn't as into games as i was, we almost always had a ds game we could bond over, and that was always a special thing to me. now that i'm older and the switch and switch 2 are out and the ds line is presumably (copium) over, i hope nintendo can bring that energy back again with a newer handheld console. because as great as the switch is, until they build something new based around bringing people together like the ds and 3ds is, i don't think that energy will be replicated.

and i really hope to see the day that it is.