While Nintendo DS owners never got San Andreas, they did receive what many consider the best handheld GTA experience: Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars. Released in 2009, Chinatown Wars proved that the GTA formula could work beautifully on the DS.
The logic seemed simple:
If you have an original Nintendo DS or DS Lite, you can also play via backward compatibility. The "San Andreas DS" Myth and Homebrew