Nintendo's DSi - perfect or could have been better?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Thursday, 02 October 2008 21:50

Opinion and Analysis

As a bonus, Nintendo is reportedly going to package 1000 points with each DSi console, thus motivating buyers to try out the store and spend their points on games or software they want.

Nintendo has been very successful with the DS range in getting non-gamers to be interested in the system, with titles such as Nintendogs and the Brain Training range, amongst others.

Nevertheless, a lot of traditional gaming titles are also included, and this has helped Nintendo keep core fans and new non-gamer fans (as such) happy – a difficult balancing act that it has played very well, not only with the DS range but also the world-beating Nintendo Wii.

Crucially in the “get DS owners to upgrade” stakes, software written specifically for the DSi reported won’t work on the older DS models, although naturally all older DS games will work on the DSi.

Nintendo has also come to realise that users don’t like waiting for battery recharging, with the DSi able to fully recharge in 2.5 hours, with a battery life from 3 to 14 hours depending on usage scenarios.

It’s a shame that Nintendo is reportedly making the rest of the world, besides Japan, wait until 2009 to have the chance of buying a DSi model.

Set to retail in Japan for around US $190 from November 1, Nintendo could have made squillions of sales over the global Christmas/end-of-year/holiday shopping season, but then given the success of the current DS models Nintendo will probably sell squillions of DSi models anyway throughout 2009 no matter when they arrive.

So, a Wii HD console did not appear, but a beefed up Nintendo DSi did instead. As the DS Lite was an evolution of the original DS, so too is the DSi an evolution, and not a revolution.

No doubt a revolutionary DS 2 model is being planned to arrive in the next couple of years, but until then, Nintendo has a new handheld model that will continue giving the Sony PSP a run for its money!