[DS] Nintendo Announces DSi - What?

I knew to be disappointed when I heard the rumors of a new DS coming. It still kind of sucks that they aren't trying to make an actual brand new DS handheld. Think about it. The DS is almost 4 years old. This DSi will effectively be extending the life of the DS for another 2 years. This can be a good and a bad thing.

For one, this isn't actually a new DS. It's just your DS lite with a few new features built-in instead of being external add-ons. I had heard that the top screen would also be a touch screen which sounded interesting if not concerning but it seems that is not the case. Putting aside applications for music and photography and firmware updates (which could prove both a bane and blessing for the homebrew/pirate scene) the one big difference is with the usage of new storage in on-board memory and SD card slot.

Should the DSi prove to somehow become a bigger platform than the DS/DS lite its exclusive downloadable DSi software could actually turn it into its own platform which could orphan the DS community similarly to what the DS did to the GBA. If you think about it this trend could prove interesting and disturbing. If developers opt to start making DSi games over DS games it could effectively nullify the DS cartridge port to a certain extent. Developers could favor a digital delivery system to cut out publishing costs. People could be effectively forced to buy a DSi if they want any new Nintendo handheld gaming, and by the time this happens two years will have passed readying Nintendo for the true successor to the DS.

Although churning out new handhelds and revisions is nothing new to Nintendo this is starting to smell like the cousin love that was the 32X. With a true successor to follow this upcoming DSi act I'd really hate to have another Saturn incident due to misplaced intentions.


The potential successor to the DS has a lot to live up to. I'm going to take a guess that we'll be seeing it around 2010. By then Nintendo will be able to utilize high capacity flash memory to its purposes and cheaply at that thus killing any thought of optical media and subsequent moving parts that haunt the PSP and its silly battery life. Speaking of that I am hopeful that Toshiba will have ramped up production of its Super Charge ion Battery which allows for extremely fast charging, higher capacity, and longer battery life while maintaining accepted battery form factors for portable devices. This will enable perfectly reasonable practicality of what is hopefully the equivalent of a portable GameCube/Wii in power, graphics, and sound. I don't think my thoughts of this matter of succession are unreasonable. The DS is practically a portable N64. The DSi introduces intriguing camera functionality to Nintendo's handhelds. I'd expect the next handheld to have at least 3 megapixel cameras on both sides.

I believe that the next Nintendo handheld will have at least one widescreen. I am hopeful that both screens have multitouch and that the system features accelerometers. I'd really love if it also had a tablet hinge to enable tablet mode. My fantasy Nintendo handheld would be dual widescreen that covers the entire surface with an active haptic feedback user interface for controls to emulate standard button layouts in addition to new custom interfaces. Of course it's always a good idea to leave physical L and R shoulder buttons and switches for power on the sides. I'm not completely insane.

I really do hope Nintendo is planning this one out correctly. I believe my idea for a future handheld grants the most promising evolution in handheld gaming but I look forward to see how Nintendo succeeds and/or fucks this up. The DSi leads down a very interesting road that depending on how traveled could shape things for the better or worse. And don't think that Sony isn't thinking about this shit. Nintendo can't be sitting on their laurels of mediocre extremely cheap hardware next time around. It won't work anymore. It won't because the electronic world is moving in a better direction and it's one that should be making the task of stepping up much easier next time around no less.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Zeph, the DSi's SD card slot is not HCSD capable unfortunately. The max it can utilize is two gigs.

However there are always slot-1 flash cart solutions like the CycloDS which are able to use micro HCSD cards beautifully.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Yup. I'm sure there will be ways around it if anyone truly cares enough. Since the DSi is supposed to be more like the Wii and communicate with it this region locking kind of makes sense. It's quite possible that imported DSi machines from Japan will not be able to communicate with US Wiis for the photo channel and other DSi/Wii related things.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.