The gadget that introduced a new wave of casual gamers to Nintendo, the hand-held DS console, turned 20 on Thursday.

The Nintendo DS remains the Japanese company’s biggest commercial success, having sold 154 million units worldwide, making it the second most-sold video game console, behind Sony’s PlayStation 2.

Pre-empting smartphone games with its touch screen and controlled with a stylus, the DS shook up the gaming world when it launched on November 21, 2004.

“Even people who had never touched a games console before easily understood how to use it, thanks to the touch screen and because it could be held horizontally or vertically,” game history expert Hiroyuki Maeda told AFP.

With its double screen and flip-open design, the console was designed to appeal to video game newcomers.

Pre-empting smartphone games with its touch screen and controlled with a stylus, the DS shook up the gaming world when it launched on November 21, 2004

At the time, the Kyoto-based game giant was rethinking its strategy after disappointing sales of its Nintendo 64 and GameCube consoles. Nintendo’s president at the time, Satoru Iwata, wanted “to expand the gaming population”.

Japanese video game giant Nintendo game creator Shigeru Miyamoto displaying the company’s new portable video game which features a double LCD display and touch sensor “DS”, at a press preview in Tokyo October 7, 2004.

“Whether a person was good at gaming or not was no longer important,” Maeda said, explaining that Nintendo had “made something into a game that was not before”.

An updated version of the DS, the Nintendo DSi, was launched in 2008, adding two cameras and the ability to download apps to the original design.

According to Maeda, the DS therefore “served as a link between the Game Boy”, Nintendo’s classic hand-held console first released in 1989, “and modern-day smartphones”.

A businessman, right, standing in line as he waits to buy the new Nintendo DS video game device in Tokyo on December 2, 2004.