Meet the DSi

Like every other person on the mailing list, I saw that Nintendo was finally putting out their
Nintendo DSi on April 5th for the US release date. Not terribly a surprise since I’ve already seen it all over the GameStop counters and the marketing has really hit home.

Still not sure if I’d call it a entirely new platform. I can definitely see where Nintendo is going with it now that there’s a little more information on it and the marketing portfolio shows a lot more camera based gaming. Which definitely is neat, although I don’t see the tie directly in for interactive gaming unlike the Wii. Then again, there might be the appeal because of the sight-touch-sound perspective.

I think that the coolest part would probably be the link to the Nintendo Shop where you can download games. But this device doesn’t include an accelerometer which would really make interactivity interesting. If you compare it with all of the other portable devices, all the rest (like the iPod Touch) have this to determine if the unit itself is moving. I personally think that accessory attachment would be interesting since interactive games with say, GPS… would be entirely possible along with environment interaction (say, you could actually do something where you take pictures at the park, to battle …. some beast. Or something…)

Nintendo’s portable division definitely took a conservative route when they released this in response to their next generation of portable gaming. It’s almost the ugly cousin of the Wii, instead of the smaller sibling. I suppose we’ll have to revisit this when the games come out so that there can be a bit more content to judge if it’s worth all the trouble of upgrading. If you’re a die-hard though, it’s currently available for pre-order at $170USD.