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Nintendo DSi

Fellow PCMag.com Network site 1Up's Philip Kollar did the work for all of us: He's parsed all the info that's been disseminated so far on the anticipated next version of Nintendo's beloved handheld gaming console, the DSi, and pulled all the pertinent stuff together.

Such as this: Yes, we've all heard the DSi will feature a camera. But did you know it'll actually have two? And why?

And how about backward compatibility? Which games will you have to give up with the new console?

Get your answers and lots more at 1Up.com.



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Posted by: Airhead540
October 6, 2008 8:11 PM

I'll tell you everything you want to know about the new DSi, so you WON'T have to click around for more information. This is being lazy (leaving the subject alone and telling someone to check it at another site) I feel.

Nintendo's new DSi, the third version of the DS, features 2 cameras on it. The first camera is right where the microphone lies in its predecessor, the DS Lite (the microphone is moved slightly to the right of this camera). The second camera lies on the top right hand side of the case (the outer side of the DS, not the inside). Both are 0.3 megapixels, meaning cell phones from 2 years ago have better quality than these cameras.

The screens are 25% larger, with the screens now being 3.17" rather than just being 3"... So it is a bonus for it to be slightly larger. As for the sound, it is rumored to be slightly better quality then the original speakers, because blaring mp3's through the DS Lite speakers just plain suck with the quality, even using headphones suck.

As for what games you cannot play: anything having to do with the GBA slot. Nintendo has made the boneheaded move to remove the Gameboy Advance slot, most likely trying to reserve the batter power (it's been cut from a 14 hour battery life to a 6 hour battery life), also the unit is slightly thinner than the DS Lite. So, no more Gameboy Advance games... You can't even play Guitar Hero On Tour, or even their upcoming game, Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades (unless you get an R4 with the special patch that allows you to play the games with the DS buttons, but it's not reccomended, as I love the original version with the strap and unique GH buttons). No rumble pack or internet browsing, for that matter... Actually, we'll get to the Internet on the DS in a paragraph or so from here...

The wifi for the DSi now has a further range than just 50 feet, I'm not sure by how much, but at least it's a further range. In addition to the GBA slot now being removed, there is now an SD card slot on the left side of the DSi, so that you can store photos taken from your camera and "transfer it to your Wii photo selection." That's a really lame excuse for putting that in. However, it is also there so you can download game demos AND full games onto the DSi. Here's where the Internet browsing comes in.

In addition to the GBA slot being removed and the SD card slot shoved in, the DS now has built in Internet browsing (I'm assuming by Opera, the originally cartridged web browser for the DS). On top of that, Nintendo has it's own downloadable content-style page, that lets you freely download upcoming DS game demos, as well as purchasing DS titles and downloading them onto your SD card directly over the DSi Internet, making it almost like the Wii/Xbox 360/PS3. It doesn't require a credit card to download; it takes "point cards," almost like that as the Wii, or the Xbox 360 gamer points. There's also a third LED on the DSi, where the power/recharching LED's are (only, the LED's are now on the left side of the unit, and not the right side). The power button is also on the lower screen in the lower left-hand side of the DS, similar to that of the original DS, only it is a small, circular button below the D-pad).

As for the most recent DSi news, they've made it so the new DSi is region-locked. Region-locked means that the newly releasing DSi in japan next month will only play Japanese DSi games, making it so that nerds ordering it online over eBay and other shipping companies will only be able to play Japanese games. How annoying is that.

For my opinion: Nintendo flubbed up with having 2 0.3 megapixel cameras (both combined still making a quality that's crappier than cell phones from 2 years ago), and they are idiots for eliminating the GBA slot, which was their money-maker for Guitar Hero: On Tour, as well as the second one on its way. As for all the other features such as the SD slot and better wifi range capabilities, good job! As for the battery being lessened to only 6 hours of playing time, I was given a refurbished DS Lite for Christmas and the battery was used so many times that it only gives me 6 hours of playing time, so I have no problem with it! lol

I'm probly gonna buy this system anyway, it still looks decent, and I'm sure that a lot of homebrew applications will be taking advantage of the central camera as a webcam for chatting of some sort, and Nintendo can't create a lock-out chip for the DSi to block R4 or other various homebrew cartridges without locking out all the previous DS games, so a lot of people will be happy to hear that.

Carol, you should have taken the time to write this out, you'd have a lot more hits on this page, and plus, you'd show the reader what you really do "know so far," unless this is what you know...

Thanks for the links though! I intend to check 1up out once I get home, since I'm at work and the page is blocked... :P!!


Posted by: carol m.
October 7, 2008 9:35 AM

@Airhead: thanks for all the info. Since 1Up is part of our family of sites, but we all have different readers, this post was intended just to let folks know about the great work 1Up did on the story--I saw no need to replicate it here. I honestly didn't think about some folks being blocked from 1Up, but I'll bear that in mind next time. (You wrote all this at work? Things must be... quiet there!)


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