It is because a lot of DS titles were 2D and the art style of those games mattered more? Because tastes have changed?

Or because Nintendo fans during the Wii/DS era claimed that we didn't care for graphics but now we all of a sudden do because of iOS games looking worse?

its because its selling so much more than the vita that caring about sales isnt really that important anymore, so you have to care about another thing, which is graphics now

I think that we only started caring more after seeing what the 3ds could really pull off, with games like Resident Evil, Shin Megami Tensei IV (the 3rd person exploration,) Kid Icarus, and other games. Honestly, if the 3ds is more powerful than the Wii, then by the end of the systems life we should see games near Xenoblade scale. Thats wishful thinking but you never know. Me myself, I could care less about graphics, thats what my Pc is for. I got the 3ds because of the amount of jrpgs coming to the system and also Nintendos first party games, which will also be the same reason I will be getting the Wii U eventually.

What? People cared about graphics on the DS. Okamiden was praised for it's graphics. Final Fantasy: Heroes of Light was praised for it's artstyle. Pokemon B2/W2 was considered the best looking Pokemon game to date.

I fail to see the point here.

The DS dominated the PSP in sales, yet people didn't care so much about its graphics.

To be honest though, I haven't heard much fuss about 3DS's grapics, so to me it feels like history  repeating itself.

i wasnt being serious

Ah, my bad, my sarcasm detection is horrendous, even in person, haha.

I never owned a DS, so I can't really comment on that.

Graphics mean about as much to me in 3DS games as they do on any other console. I certainly want the game I'm playing to look nice. That does not have anything to do with the number of polygons being rendered or the complexity of the lighting.

People don't care about "the graphics", so much as "how well they can use the 3D effect". The DS was never selling anything to do with visuals as a selling point. The 3DS's primary selling point is visual. So, people pay closer attention to it. Also, better graphical capabilities = more desire to see those capabilities leveraged properly.

Kind of like how people care more about Wii U graphics than Wii graphics, yet still aren't as fussed about Wii U graphics as XB1 or PS4 graphics. And why people were quite annoyed at third parties putting out Wii games with graphics barely comparable to PS2, yet still said graphics weren't a major issue with regards to the system - because the issue wasn't "not good graphics", it was "not good enough care with game-making".

Is that a thing? I haven't really noticed that much on the topic, but that could just be me being thick.