Earlier this morning, Nintendo made several major announcements in a press conference in Japan. Ranging from a new Nintendo DS to a Wii storage solution.
"Nintendo's ace in the sleeve this week is a redesigned DS, called the Nintendo DSi.
The new DS looks a lot like the old one but with some significant changes: it's 12% thinner than the DS Lite, and will include a built-in 3 megapixel camera that sits on top of the system and a smaller 0.3 megapixel camera in between the two screens. The screens are also slightly larger -- going from 3 to 3.25 inches, and will include an SD card slot.
The DSi's other new tricks: the ability to manipulate images stored on the SD card and photos can be synced with the Wii Photo channel. The speakers have also been improved and users can change the pitch and speed of the sound.
The new DSi will launch an online DSi shop via Wi-Fi and a browser that will be built into the system. Similar to the Wii Shop, the DSi shop will take "Nintendo Points," (formerly known as Wii Points) and prices for the store will be 0, 200, 500 and 800-point tiers. Nintendo says the shop will include games that you can download and store on the SD card.
The DSi will launch in Japan on November 1, 2008, and will be available in black and white for 189,000 yen (or roughly US $178). The system will ship everywhere else in 2009.
How will the smaller DSi be able to accommodate all of these new wiz bang gadgets? Well, it gives by taking away. In this case, the big Game Boy Advance card slot will be no more. This might come as a shock to GBA loyalists, but no worry, Nintendo says it considers the DSi a third platform and, if the company's console history teaches us anything, the DS Lite won't go away anytime soon.
This is the third redesign of the Nintendo DS since its launch in 2004. We suspect that these more "mature" add-ons are Nintendo's attempt to stay on top of the handheld gaming market as the Apple iPhone, iPod Touch (and copycats) edge into their territory. Also, the PSP will be launching a new model in October, with a better screen and built-in microphone.
At the same press conference in Tokyo, Nintendo Prez Satoru Iwata also attempted to address growing concerns about the Wii's lack of storage by saying that users will be able to download games onto SD cards starting in Spring 2009. It's not exactly the harddrive we were looking for, and it really seems like a stopgap solution until something better comes along. Iwata also says they will be releasing a new Wi-Fi adaptor to encourage more people to use the Wii's online service.
Nintendo has a press conference planned in San Francisco tomorrow, and we assume that will be the official announcement for the US version. We have a reporter on the ground who will be covering it from the event. In the meantime, check out the DSi's official site (in Japanese) to see more images and features on the brand new DS."
New Games
Just to round out the evening, Nintendo also announced several news games. For the DS, we have a new Trace Memory adventure title as well as Mario and Luigi 3. The Wii will be getting Punch Out and Sin and Punishment 2.
Nintendo also announced that they will be "refreshing" older GameCube games like Pikmin and DK Jungle Beat. These games will be ported to the Wii and released under the "Games You Can Play on Wii Selection" label.
here are some pics of the DSi
most of the info was from the aol website :P, the rest was bits and pieces from other sites
well i sure am excited about this :P i don really care bout the bigger screen but i do care bout the cam :O! 3.0 megapixels *-*! but will it be able to use stuff like video conferencing? thats interesting oh well :P! just hav to wait for it to come out, i know ill be saving my money xD the only bad thing is they took of the gba slo ):! i really luv gba games, but oh well thats wat they made stuff like the Cyclo DS for xDD
but will those mods still be effective on the new ds? just hav to wait and see
till next time :D!
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2 comments:
this is the first time im lovin nintedo...im not the kind of girl that used to buy this type of things...but i dont know why i felt in love with this...DSi...good post!
Vice Principal Sophie Jamieson is voiced by Jeff Bennett.
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