Insofar as side-scrolling shooters go, it's doing just fine.

Though, yes, I agree that it hasn't filled in the "console replacement" niche yet, I don't think that that is either necessary or an entirely good thing to do.

Sales of Mario Kart say the DS is doing just fine in the racing genre and Metroid Prime Hunters, the CoD titles, and Moon are quite good for FPS shooters.  You have a point with sports titles though I find it not that important of a genre other then the occasional arcade type sports title :P

For racing Mario Kart DS, Race Driver and GRID say hi...

For shooter Metroid Prime Hunters is the best FPS on handhelds, you can search this everywhere, and you've got also Moon and The Ward... If you're on side-scrolling shooters pick up Nanostray 1 and 2...

For sports yeah, aside of Tiger Woods, DS just sucks...

There's Tiger, Madden, MLB, Fifa, Mario 3 on 3 hoops, and all of that on DS, but really no one cares to play those games on the go.  What I want is Mario Strikers and Mario Tennis and I'll actually care about DS sports titles.

Really not in Racing, Sports genres, so can't comment on this, but Shooters... well, if you mean FPS\TPS so there're very few titles on handhelds worth playing, but all of them inferior to home consoles or PC versions. Couple of Syphon Filters and Metroid Prime Hunters - that's practically all I'd recommend for FPS\TPS lovers on handhelds. Someone may add Resistance, Killzone, Moon, Ward etc., but those are very questionable. So let's say if DS haven't got this... no handheld on market have this. FPS\TPS just not a handheld genre... yet. Why? Well, there's difference between game on handheld and handheld game. Most of portable Shooters just pure reincarnations of home consoles or PC titles in miniature. Some unique design ideas are needed to make those games appeal to mass public besides portable format. As you may see most of game genres on DS fit it's design idea very well, but FPS\TPS... hmmm, none of developers haven't overcome this challenge yet. Maybe in the future.

Yeah... And a NBA title should be good too...

you know how much of a stereotype fanboy that makes you sound like right now? The same exact one people like me  preach against!

Though mario tennis used to be good.

Uhm no I like arcade type sports titles, very few people make them anymore except for Nintendo, it's not a stereotype or fanboyism it's a preference.... go take your preaching somewhere else :P

Well, the Syphon Filter games are excellent. All three SOCOM games were very good. Killzone: Liberation was a lot of fun. And the Call of Duty games were supposed to be decent as well. I haven't played a good DS shooter first or third person shooter, so I agree with your last part.

@ whorenraged

What? Outside of MK DS, what has been good?

Regardless, Ridge Racers 1 and 2, Wipeout Pure, Wipeout Pulse, Burnout Legends, Burnout Dominator, OutRun 2006, Twisted Metal, Midnight Club: DUB (and L.A. Remix), Pursit Force 1 and 2, and I could go on.

And as far as sports title, the PSP gets the superior version of nearly each sport every year. FIFA, Madden, Pro Evo, MLB: The Show, Tiger Woods, and even the NBA PSP games that Sony makes aren't that bad.

DS trumps PSP in almost every way when it comes to FPS titles, TPS PSP is king, DS has Metroid Prime Hunters, the awesome CoD4 and CoD:W@W titles, and Moon, the only TPS on DS of note is Brothers in Arms which was really good though needed multiplayer and needed to be longer.  PSP has awesome TPS games like you said SOCOM, Syphon Filter, and my personal favorite (you may think I'm crazy) Star Wars Battlefront Renegade Squadron. 

And DS has some really good racing titles that just didn't sell that well like Racedriver create and race which allowed you to make your own tracks and upload them online and you could play peoples tracks and such, really an awesome game, which GRID was made by the same guys and carried the GRID feel but again didn't sell well.  The issue with a lot of PSP racers is the ones that try to get you to steer with the analog nub or the only way to make a turn right is to use it, those games feel really clunky and jerky when racing, it's not very smooth, otherwise PSP has a strong racing lineup as well.