UPDATE: I’m honestly overwhelmed by the response. Thank you all for the insights, memories and messages! I’ve reached out to Nintendo for any official confirmation how many DS where given out and if there‘s more info to it. Until then, I’ll try to preserve the device as best as I can and I can‘t resist the urge to swap the screen to get rid of the dead pixel nightsky, even when I‘m not actively playing with it, it bothers me… Will post another update when I have response from Nintendo!

Again: thank you. You made my week!

——- The Story so far:

Hey folks,

back in 2005 I won this DS during a Mario Kart DS tournament at the Nintendo booth on the Games Convention Leipzig (Germany). After winning a race, I could drop my name into a raffle – and I was lucky enough to be drawn. This was the prize.

The console has a unique Peach engraving and the text “special limited edition 2005” on the lid. From what I found online, it seems this design was only given out at that event, and maybe only 5 units per character (like Mario, DK, Bowser, Peach etc.) were made – but I can’t find much proof if others still exist.

There’s a Consolevariations.com entry for this exact console, but no market history or value listed. The one person owning it is me.

So my question is: Has anyone ever seen another one of these? Is this thing actually considered rare or valuable? And what would be a realistic price for it?

It’s fully working, shows typical stylus wear on the touchscreen, but otherwise fine with some wear and tear on the edges. Not sure I’d sell it – but curious if I should keep it in a safe 😅

Thanks for any insights!

EDIT: Just powered it on again and was shocked to find out it has around 40–50 stuck pixels on the top screen… I honestly didn‘t notice that yesterday. Guess I was just too excited 😅

For anyone curious: It looks like a „beautiful“ nightsky… https://imgur.com/a/mb1ee0Y

Hace un año tome prestada la DS de mi hermana para ponerle un Kit azul transparente que compre en Aliexpress. Lamentablemente corte el cable de uno de los altavoces, y la entrada del cable Flex de la pantalla de arriba no conecto bien. Deje la modificación para más adelante por miedo de romper más cosas de la consola. Un día en la calle, encontré a una chica que estaba intentado vender una DS rota a una tienda de segunda mano, la tienda la rechazo por que estaba rota. Un rato después me encontré con la chica en frente de una papelera, a punto de tirar la consola, justo en ese momento hable con ella y me dio la consola con su funda original por apenas 10€. Fusione la consola de mi hermana y la de esta chica (que justo las partes que funcionaban, fueron las partes que rompí), y cree esta consola de aquí, es una historia que me parece bastante curiosa y el resultado me gusto bastante jajaja.

Edit: Muchas gracias a todos los que le gusten la consola, si tenéis alguna pregunta, preguntad si queréis modificar una igual.

This DS Arcade was a idea thats been in the back of my mind for years since I made that GBA Arcade back in 2021. Just like that I wanted to use real ds lite hardware, but needed bigger screens, was easily done with a dstvout mod, just hook the composite from the top screen to a 8 inch screen, but for the bottom screen there wasnt much, until nintendre.mods on insta designed a ds to dsi screen adapter board, so I can hook up dsi xl screen for the bottom touch screen, slapped it all in a custom made case by yours truly and all powered from a powerbank. Also threw in a screen switching button last minute, bc some games put the gameplay on the bottom screen. I made a story highlight of the build on my insta, so check that out also.

:D I am the biggest winner more like!

I wanted to get my almost 10 year old white 3DS fixed because it wouldn’t charge the battery and the circle pad was damaged and contacted Nintendo but since they didn‘t have the parts for it, they offered me a brand new 3DS Zelda LTD edition, it is legit a new one!

However I do miss my white 3DS 🥲

for context, we were just talking about what kind of games we remember from our childhood, I told him my favorite game as a kid was Kirby Mass Attack, but i had lost my DS. So he gave me this one, but sadly there is no charger and the stylus is missing. Still super cool :D!!!

Ii's my first custom on Nintendo ds lite in a frutiger Aero y2k theme! I spent a crazy time there and not without suffering. I broke the original top screen, so I bought a new one.. putting the screen back on the motherboard was extremely difficult, I don't even wish that at my worst enemy (mental breakdown). I soldered the speakers, at first they worked and then not....AAAAAAAAA. Come on, no more speaker, i removed it. My roomate gave me thoses beautiful Sony headphones from the 2000's aaaand it work hope you like this first build !

I can use him to do almost everything, to play, listen music, and now I discovered a way to turn him into a Kindle. I have a whole library in my hands now (by the way, the book is Hard to be a God)

This comes up surprisingly often. People always ask why DS games look blurry on a 3DS, a 3DS XL, or any of the later Nintendo variations. So I got out my microscope and put together a little demo image.

The DS Lite uses RGB pixel strips with a small connecting dot, plus a black gap between each pixel.
The DSi has a sharper display because it’s smaller, and it doesn’t have the black outlines you see on the NDS/DSL.

The DSi XL has a better colour range thanks to its IPS display, but it can appear less sharp simply because it’s larger. All three consoles render DS games at a 1:1 pixel ratio.

Then we get to the 3DS XL (or New 3DS XL, in this case). Two major differences: pixel upscaling (i.e., blur) and fundamentally different pixel geometry, with the subpixel bars running the opposite way and noticeable vertical black gaps.

So when playing DS games, I personally prefer the DSi XL for its contrast, brightness, and colour, and the DSi for a smaller, crisper image.

Thought I’d share this and link back to it for future posts.

EDIT:
As an unscaled 3DS was requested, and I can't add pics to a post, hop over here to see:
https://www.reddit.com/r/nds/comments/1se42ug/ds_games_on_3ds_xl_unscaled_vs_scaled/

5 DSI XL, 5 DSI, 4 DS Lite, 1 New 3DS and one Gameboy Color all for $550 + Games. All working 🤩🤩

Me and my friends often meet up at the bar and play MarioKart DS together, and I love it.

Life Signs Surgical Unit DS is a charming game that is a cross between Ace Attorney and Trauma Center. The game is very innocent for the most part except for your injuries/surgery scenes of course, these caught me off guard because it’s a very different vibe from the rest of the game, 3 scary stories you can choose. Thought it was interesting to share.

wanted to do something unique for my girl, now I can run laps around her in Mario Kart 😂

He also added a bunch of other Pokemon games, and got me a physical copy of LoZ Ocarina of Time 3D to boot.