Ok, so maybe it wasn’t quite as dramatic as that, but the end result is certainly the same; I’ve used my DS for the grand total of one full battery charge since I bought my iPhone.

How do I know this? I can’t find my DS charger and I haven’t had any real desire to look for it….

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not as though the DS has a lack of good games, it’s quite the opposite in fact as some of my favorite games in recent memory are on the DS; Advance Wars Dual Strike and Days of Ruin, The World Ends With You, both Professor Layton games, The Phoenix Wright games, Castlevanias and Pokemon are all fantastic games, and this is just off the top of my head. Nor is because the DS is inconvenient to carry around; it fits in most pockets and my bag even has a iPod “holster” the DS fits snuggly in (and strangely enough, an iPod doesn’t really fit in it well) that ensures it’s with me for most journeys.

It’s because the iPhone, in spite of Apple’s dislike of video game, can provide practically all the portable gaming I need in my life. While it cannot compete toe to toe with the DS purely on its gaming credentials, the fact the iPhone can provide something close to the level of enjoyment afforded by my DS while also doing so many other things, means my DS has languished in my bag collecting dust.

I mean, just looking at the names I listed above, only The World Ends With You provides a gameplay experience that I honestly can’t see being replicated on the iPhone; every other game’s gameplay on that list could be, or has already been replicated for the iPhone albeit lacking the depth of a DS game (though at only a fraction of the price, or even occasionally at no cost, who could complain about that). While TWEWY is far from the only DS game that isn’t replicable on the iPhone, the fact remains that for (usually) $5 or less I can get an experience that’s close to the quality of a $70 DS game without needing to carry around a separate device (as I pretty much always have my phone on me anyway).

Every now and then I’m sure a game will come alone that will make me dust the old DS off, but for the most part, my iPhone has killed the DS.