Disclaimer: While we don’t like to get too preachy about the legal/moral implications of these copyright issues, remember that if you really have an itch to play some of these old games, you can find them on the Nintendo Wii’s Virtual Console for cheap. Buy officially licensed stuff: you’re worth it!

A white-hot trademark supernova

Super Mario, Contra, Space Invaders.  And just about every other old NES game you remember, housed in a PSP-like shell.  The PVP is a crazy little handheld videogame device for playing old school video games on an emulator.  This one boasts 2500 games on one cart- a classic game clean sweep.

Portable or TV-connected

Every day, I play a game on my commute home from work. And every day, my commute is finished before the game is.  These guys have a crystal ball into this scenario, and have built a TV out from the PVP device, so players can finish the rest of the level with big-screen comfort.

Emulated video games take a wide variety of forms on Taobao. You can get your games in a Game Boy Advanced shell, or a retro Japanese Famicom-like shell. If you don’t mind hardware copycats but despise software emulation, you can find some examples of those too.

Fun little training games are one of the DS’s strong suits, and a game called My Chinese Coach was released a few months ago. It is not a full-featured learning course, but has a handful of good interactive exercises that will be useful for helping beginner- and intermediate-level students remember words and tones. 

If you get some momentum with this training thing, you can also train your brain, your eyes (probably my favorite), and facial expressions.

There are currently two models out on the market (not counting the old ugly one). The DS pictured here, and a brand new DSi released in Japan which has some added features like a camera. 

If you are new on the DS scene, it is my recommendation to pick up the standard DS and not the DSi. It usually takes about two years for the game developers to figure out cool stuff to do with the new features (see the facial expressions link above for an example of what they are doing so far). With the standard DS, you already have a lengthy back catalog of great games to explore. And you’ll save a bit of money. 

The one linked here has all the accessories you need, including the R4 card, a 7-day unconditional exchange and a one year repair warranty. 

A Nintendo DS - 1120rmb