Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has said the games giant doesn't blame the decline in DS software sales entirely on piracy, but on the quality of the games themselves.

Speaking during a recent investors call, Iwata said: "If one software can attract many people and can become a social topic, that software can sell regardless of piracy," exampling 'Art Academy' as one of the few DS games that's managed to top charts in recent months.

He went on: "Of course, as a responsibility of the platform holder, we will tackle piracy. For example, when we launch new hardware, such as Nintendo 3DS, it is a good opportunity to beef up the countermeasures, and we are actually working on that now.

"On the other hand, I do not think we should attribute bad software sales solely to piracy. Even with piracy, as long as we can create products which can attract attention from many consumers and which can greatly entertain them, that software can make it to the No. 1 position of the hit software sales chart.

"So, we would like to consider it from both perspectives simultaneously. It is true there is always the influence of piracy, but it is important for us to increase the number of our consumers who are willing to shell out their money to purchase our products. So, we do not intend to think that slower sales are solely due to piracy."

With the exception of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, when was the last time you rushed out to buy a DS game in a fit of excitement?

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I think that the lack of good games might be the reason for many games on every console or format failing. It hardly takes a genius to work that out.

I have a love hate relationship with the DS. I love some of the good games and there's some stuff that just wouldnt work on any other console. But by god there's a load of crap too. And the cost of the games isnt good either. It came to a point where I'd want a new game, hold a full price DS game in one hand and a 360 game in the other and decide that the 360 would give me better value for money. I think if there were more quality games at a lower cost then I'd have hung onto the DS.

I also found it annoying how the console was replaced so often. DS, DS Lite, DSi, DSi XL....

This

Only Pokemon Black/White, Prof Layton and a few others this year, not much last year that I remember playing

Even tempted to sell my DSi and go back to a Lite if possible as I don't use the other features

Unfortunately for the DS, once you've played one cutesy 8-bit platform game aimed at 4 year olds, you've pretty much played them all.

My wife has had a DS for a few years. She's played the Mario games to death and there doesn't appear to be much else out there.

I agree with the sentiment (not much out there) but there is definately more than the odd Mario game I could recommend.

Professor Layton, Zelda, GTA Chinatown Wars, Animal Crossing, Pokemon, FFIV, Advance Wars, Pheonix Wright, Scribblenauts, Chrono Trigger, Metroid Prime Hunters, and a couple of Sonic games.

Its just a shame for me that the games were costing at times as much as their bigger console brothers.