Touch Strap

Description

The Nintendo DS Touch Strap was a wrist strap accessory bundled with the original DS, notable for including a small plastic “thumb stylus” designed to interact with the touchscreen. This strap was officially designated NTR‑009 and attached to the hinge of the handheld. The thumb stylus was a rounded plastic nub that could be worn on the thumb, allowing players to use the touchscreen without holding the standard pen‑style stylus. Nintendo promoted it especially for Super Mario 64 DS, where the thumb strap enabled more fluid analogue‑like control on the touchscreen.

Unlike later DS Lite and DSi straps, the Touch Strap was unique to the launch model and was eventually phased out. Many players found the thumb stylus awkward compared to the precision of the regular stylus. It remains a quirky part of the DS’s launch and accessory history, as part of Nintendo’s experimentation with touchscreen input in the early 2000s.