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It came and went with little fanfare. This Friday just gone, Nintendo released the New 2DS XL, a console that - barring any major surprises - will mark the end of an era you can trace back via some noted milestones to 1982, and to some of the Kyoto outfit's very first dalliances with video games. It could mark the end of several eras, in fact. Nintendo's DS line has always been a fascinating mongrel that tossed together a handful of the company's various bloodlines, along with some of that lateral thinking that has often exemplified the company at its best. You can see the handheld heritage of the original 1989 Game Boy - a true phenomenon in its own time, yet still a console that was outsold comfortably by the DS itself - as well as that delightful and slightly inexplicable nod towards the multi-screen Game & Watch units popularised by 1982's Donkey Kong.
I've always loved how the DS wore Nintendo's history on its sleeve, though the machine's success came perhaps despite its curious set-up rather than because of it. When the machine was first revealed in 2004 it was universally mocked, and those astronomical sales would be some time coming.
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