THIRD PILLAR

@thirdpillards.com

47 Followers 18 Following

Dedicated to the appreciation the Nintendo DS and its library of games, applications, and more. Coming when it's ready™. 🟦 🟦👈🏾We are the Touch Generation!! [ youtube.com/@ThirdPillarDS | thirdpillards.com ] Hosted & curated by @sylverstonekhandr.com.

Nintendo DSi LL packaging in Japan. Featuring the Wine Red color.

Photo of Chris and Neal playing on the DS, along with an interview snippet.

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GameSpy: Why not a PSP? Or your GameCube? It has a handle.

Neal Mueller: I grew up playing Nintendo, so it was just obvious for us to contact them first. The DS is also portable and really rugged, and they're wireless, which meant I could play against Chris even if we were in different tents.

GameSpy: Wouldn't it have been smarter to leave the DS at home, thus lightening your load?

Neal Mueller: Well, they are very light. And when you go up to base camp, which is 18 thousand feet, the yaks carry your stuff. But I did have to carry it myself when we went from 18 thousand feet to 26 thousand feet, which isn't a trivial amount of distance, and it's pretty vertical as well. But it's so light, and it's really small, so it doesn't really much at all. Plus, we could charge it with these solar panels, and we had to bring solar panels anyway to charge up the radios and the satellite phone.

Chris Grubb: Though the batteries worked better if you warmed them up with your hands a bit first.

GameSpy: Did you guys decide to bring Madden and Metroid because you could play them against each other via WiFi?

Neal Mueller: Yes, and that's why we got the DS. The DS is known for being really good for multiplayer, and it has the WiFi, which is good because wires have a tendency to get lost or broken. Chris and I also like playing multiplayer games, they're a lot more fun than playing alone. Mountain climbing isn't something you do alone anyway, it's not safe, so people who climb mountains like doing things with other people.

Chris Grubb: Also, in mountain climbing, you often have to put your trust in someone else's hands, and it might be someone you've only met a few days before, so it's a good idea to promote bonding between people, whether it's by playing cards or some multiplayer video games.

Chris Grubb and Neal Mueller play their Nintendo DS systems while in the tent.

The New Super Mario Bros. US TV commercial, featuring gameplay and the Nintendo DS Lite.

“Unlike many people in the company, I was not afraid of Yamauchi-san. I had already fought with him over different issues and I also sometimes publicly opposed his ideas. But Iwata turned me down and said ‘No, we will still give it a try. See what you can do with [it].’ We were both bothered by this, especially since it meant that we had to start all over with our project! So I tried to put my team at ease and I told them ‘I have some experience working with double screens, we will give it our best shot and we’ll see, don’t worry.’ It became Project Nitro, released in 2004 under the name Nintendo DS...”

The radical nature of the Nintendo DS was so out there that even internally, their employees didn’t know what to make of it.

Nintendo DS 21st Anniversary

A screenshot of the THIRD PILLAR YouTube channel on the YouTube app. The current subscriber count is at 51, with 2 published videos.

The boxart for Betty Boop's Double Shift. Yes, this game actually exists.

A Nintendo DS 20th Anniversary celebratory banner with all 4 Nintendo DS models - the original NTR-001 model (aka DS Phat), DS Lite, DSi, and DSi XL. Created by Sylverstone Khandr.

Rolling Stone focusing on the original DS model, and noting that it "turned many off with its cheap-looking design".

An advert for Super Mario 64 DS which shows a hand prominently pointing upward. A Piranha Plant is at the end of the pointing index finger, and the Nintendo DS slogan "touching is good" is to its right.