Nintendo’s Nintendo DS With more than 150 million units sold, the series is one of the most successful handheld consoles in gaming history. From the original Big Sweet Potato in 2004, to the most popular DS Lite in 2006, to the DSi in 2008 and the DSi XL in 2009 (these two machines were actually a bit outdated when they were launched), this period was almost the golden age of Nintendo.
However, because the DS is so popular, a lot of knockoffs have appeared in the market – the most notorious of which is the “DS ML” made in China. What the hell?
False yet true: the black humor of DS ML
In fact, this DS ML is a hybrid of “fake and real”: it actually uses parts from the original Dafanshu original DS, but the outer shell imitates the design of the DS Lite. It looks like a DS Lite from the outside, but once you turn it on, everything is “very copycat.”
First of all, the screen brightness is much lower than that of DS Lite, and the display grain is obvious; the speaker sound quality is also dull. Because the internal parts are actually old parts from 2004, not later improved models. This makes the overall experience somewhere between “second-hand DS” and “it doesn’t feel right to play”.
advantage? Barely enough…
Interestingly, this copycat machine is actually “more considerate” in some places – for example, its GBA card slot can fit perfectly with the fuselage, unlike the original DS which protrudes a little. In addition, the price of this copycat was much lower than the genuine product, which indeed attracted some parents who wanted to save money to mistakenly buy it as a gift for their children. But what we were most afraid of when we started playing DS Lite was buying a refurbished DS Lite from China. It looked exactly the same!
DS ML becomes a strange legend in the collecting world
Today’s DS ML has become a strange item among collectors, and traces can still be found in some second-hand markets. The price is slightly higher than it was back then, but this is mainly due to “rarity” rather than “performance”. The price of sticks for retro players has increased again. For nostalgic gamers, the machine is both a symbol of Nintendo’s influence and a page in the history of China’s copycat culture – a microcosm of the era that is both absurd and true.