Nintendo Dsi

From the house that mario built comes a system with larger screens, faster processors, more RAM, an international flash drive, an SD slot, and two cameras. But is it worth a purchase?

The success of the Nintendo DS surprised everyone, Nintendo most of all. Here was the ugliest hardware produced, seemingly burdened with a dual screen and a microphone gimmick - surely a desperate gamble by the house of mario against the sleek, sexy, sony play station portable. Five years, and two iterations later, the DS, which was once the “third pillar” of Nintendo’s business, is now leading the charge with more than 100 million units of hardware units sold. Nintendo is clearly printing money here, and the Dsi is the latest stratagem to ensure that the printers do not run dry.

Why Dsi? After all, the DS Lite is an astounding success, why replace it? The thought behind th eDSi handheld is simple: everyone should own one – it is ‘your own Nintendo DS’, With this mantra, tha Japanese giant hopes to increase the number of people who own a DS within a household: according to statistics shared by Nintendo, in japan, there are an average of 2.8DS users per household, but each of those households only possesses, an average of 1.8 DS consoles. The game plan is thus to increase the 1.8 to 2.8, if not more, and thus to make more money.

The how is where the DSi comes in.

This time, it’s personal

Note the ‘I’ in DSi –“What will you and ‘I’ do”, Nintendo asks. To make the unit more personal, the DSi introduces some hardware changes. The more visible is the addition of an external camera; with a twin snuggled in the middle of the unit’s hinge. These two cameras are not meant to replace your digital camera, not your cell phone camera, for that matter – they are VGA cameras, not megapixel giants, and are meant to encourage casual snapping of friends and family at social gatherings; and then adding a personal touch (more on that later). The DSi also introduces an SD slot to the handheld family. The SD card is meant to support another personalization aspect of the DSi; a digital store called DSiware which will sell software ranging from free to $8 and above – games, calculators, photo frames, route maps, TV listing, clocks, and such – through which one might further personalize their DSi, and thus one might be more likely to buy a new unit, rather than lend or borrow from a friend, or family.

 The DSi also introduces other hardware changes – the speakers are more subtle in appearance but sound  much more capable thanks to a new chip; the power switch is now a power button below the D-pad is much more tactile offering a marked improvement in diagonal movements within games.

The DSi loses the GBA slot of the DS and DSLite, which makes certain accessories – such as the paddle attachment of Arkanoid DS, the key grip of the guitar hero: On the tour game, the RAM pack for the DS web browser , and the rumble pack – deadweights on the new console. And of course, you can no longer play GameBoy, Advance(GBA) games on the DSi. This change makes  the unit about 12 percent thinner than DSLite but also slightly longer. The increased length is used to offer larger screens – now at 3.25 inches each, up from the older model’s 3.inch screens.

While Nintendo hasn’t revealed any spec changes, the DSi is powered by two ARM-based processors – SRM9 and ARM7, with the main processor clocked 133 MHz. Its internal RAM had been increased four times to 16MB. It also comes with 256MB of flash storage, with the possibility of expansion though the SD slot. The DSi supports SDHC. DSi works also fine with 32GB SD card.

Manufacturing Fun

There are significant software changes made to the OS of the DSi; from the mundane(yet overdue) support of WPA security for the wireless access(although older DS titles will not be able to access WPS-compatible routers and access points), to the significant revamp of the entire software interface and the introduction of several key programs.

The underlying philosophy for the new software seems to be interactivity and fun(although the latter is subjective). Take the camera app to begin with; you can snap pictures by hitting the left or right shoulder buttons on the DSi, using wither the external camera for friends or family, o the internal camera for self-portraits. Photos can either be stored in internal memory or on the SD card. And then – and this is where the subjective fun aspect lies – you can apply ‘filters’ to the photos. These filters let you morph photos, or ass sparkle, hearts, flowers to a photo, add/remove colors from the photo,  compare and juxtapose, draw moustaches, snap on glares….you get the picture. Some might be endlessly entertained by this aspect of snapping and playing; while others bored by merely reading about it here, but the intent is to “have fun with photos in social situations”, rather than, “take high-quality photos as mementoes”.

A sound app shares the philosophy of interactivity. Here you can record your own voice via the DSi’s microphone; you can also play with your personal music collection accessed via the SD slot. Note that the DSi supports only the ACC audio codec. You can play with the pitch and the speed of sound files as well as apply filters to sounds which act voice effects such as helium, tracsreceiver,8-bit, and even allows you to play a track backwards. The music player offered is competent enough and offers a decent bunch of visualizations on the top screen, supports playlists, and even lets you join in a song via present clapping, drumming, or cymbal sounds.

IS it worth the upgrade

If you have a DSLite, should you upgrade to DSi? The answer is – it depends. Do you play a lot GBA titles and so not have a GBA/SP/Micro? If yes, then the DSi will not be a replacement system but will be an another console to carry. If the DSi is your first DS system then the answer is an obvious YES – there are many great titles to own and enjoy on this handheld. Furthermore, the DSiShop and thus the DSiWare introduced are worthwhile additions. There are already some good games to pick up(see box), and to some these games are reason enough to make the upgrade. There is also the promise of future DSi – enhanced, and DSi – only games. Games that will utilize the additional horsepower and the added camera – Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks is already rumored to offer camera functionalities to DSi owners. Note though: you wish to pick DSi for its dual camera then don’t. The cameras are VGA, photos shot take up a green or blue tinge, and their low-light performance is abysmal. Further there is only one DSiWare game that makes significant use of the cameras(Wario Ware: Snapped) and this too falters more often than not – playing this game is a frustrating exercise is finding just the correct lighting conditions or the game’s facial recognition aspects fail.

However, the DSiWare library is the best reason to pick up a Dsi. But here DRM rears its ugly head. DSiWare titles are region-locked and you cannot purchase a game sold on a UK store, using a US Console. It remains unclear whether DSi-specific retail titles will be locked to regions as well. On that aspect at least, the DSi is unequivocally a step back. Another point to consider is that the DSi costs more than the DSLite that it replaces – by about $40.

So what’s our verdict? If you love time with Nintendo – style downloadable titles, then you should immediately pick DSi, for everyone else we would suggest waiting for the inevitable price drop and Dsi-specific retail games.