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Say hello to my little friend… Nintendo DSi

October 2nd, 2008 at 10:30 am · 13 Comments

by
DSi Photo Editor

Oh boy. That sure is "kerayzee".

The lack of a GBA slot means no more Guitar Hero: On Tour, but on the plus side you can take photos on your DS and then, erm..view them on the Wii photo channel. Better yet, you can take two photos at once. And then mess around with them using “kerayzee” photo-manipulation software built into the console.

There’s also a web browser thrown in for good measure, and no doubt it’ll be the same one you’d pay full price for on the DS consoles beforehand; no bad thing, when you remember that it’s developed by Opera. Along with that, Nintendo have announced a “DSi Shop” that, much like the Wii Shop, will allow you to use DSi Points to purchase games (snappily nicknamed “DSiWare”) for your handheld. There are probably a bunch of other fantastic features I’ve not picked up on but I’m not the best at reading Japanese so that’s your lot for now.

As I said up the top there though, this is all looking awfully familiar. As a route for the DS to go down it’s completely out of character for Nintendo, who’ve never seen fit to create this sort of thing before. Save for the efforts of the homebrew market the DS has never really been touted as a media player. It could perhaps be seen as trying to build on what the PSP’s done reasonably well (although, you can argue, the sales figures for the DS still speak for themselves).

The PSP’s always touted itself as a games machine with some great multimedia extras thrown in: web browser, music player, photo viewer, video player and camera, with the Go!Cam addon purchased. Nintendo might be keen to capitalise on this and when combined with the wide appeal of the DS they’ll definitely be onto the winner. And hey, it’ll give the Wii Photo Channel a reason to exist.

The DSi is launching in Japan on November 1st for around $179 (£100) and there’s nothing too specific on the subject of a Western release just yet. Announcements probably wont be too far off, though.

What do you think, then? Is it just a dual-screened attempt at a PSP or is Nintendo on to something?

Nintendo announces DSi in Tokyo – vg247

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Categories: DS · Meta (about SG) · News

  • http://batsrpg.blogspot.com/ lwelyk

    I’m still on the fence on this one. I probably won’t buy it for a while due to it’s similarities with the DS Lite, but it does seem intersting. They’re definitely trying to push the PSP out with this though.

  • Samosael

    NO GBA SLOT = FAIL

    If I can’t play Golden Sun (or the pokemon DS games that make us of the slot) I’m not going to buy.

  • Lord Butters I

    They’ll probably keep the Lite on the market, the having of a GBA slot is a valuable thing, and the DS’s target audience generally doesn’t care about a camera.

  • http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/index.php/author/eoco Eoco

    I’m gonna pick one of them up.

  • http://www.puredigitalthought.com Saccia

    Oh great. Now people can take a picture of their junk and post it up on their Wii photo channel. Totally worth the price of a new DS.

    Yamster, you haven’t lived long enough if you think this is uncharacteristic of Nintendo. Nintendo is the champion of selling bits of useless plastic then revamping it to resell new bits of plastic a few years later. The Wii is a perfect example. Plastic and useless just as the DSi will be. But you can be assured this shit will sell like hotcakes.

  • PyroTails

    I might get it if it’s cheap enough. I still have my original DS Phat, and the bigger screens look nice.

  • Blackswordsman

    Im indifferent as it is not much improvement from the lite, meh.

  • Mike

    Bigger screen is a defo must, my eyesight is OK, but not good, and although i could use the small screens, a slightly bigger screen would make a nice difference.

  • Grantly

    I’ll probably be getting one.

  • Fishbag

    Looks nice, I won’t bother to upgrade, but at least Nintendo are starting to wake up and feed us some more sweet sweet hardcore. (mmm sin n punishment 2)

  • DoomHammer

    might get it eventually but not primarily for gaming if i do. removing the gba slot is not an improvement, its bad enough that they designed the DS lite to make sure GBA games stick out like a sore thumb ot it. the could have used the sacrificed width for a wider screen. and more importantly the gloden sun series must be playable on my nintendo handheld.

    The camera and bigger screens though could be tempting. ill wait for more new before making a descision. the DS lite will do me fine till then.

  • DoomHammer

    just thought id add something to my comment an acceptable altertanative would be to port both golden sun games to a single DS cartridge/ other compatable SD cartridge. Id pay between £15 – £20 for that alone. If they threw in 2 golden themed DS skins one for each game I would pay £30 for that package. I wouldnt care if they fitted the new DS but i would like them for the DS lite. I dpnt know if camelot (i think thats the Golden sun developers) would do that but it would be cool :)

  • DoomHammer

    correction – golden sun themed*