Nintendo has this nastly little habit of redesigning its handheld consoles every few years or so, yet unlike Apple’s similar practice of making only very subtle changes to its iPod lineup every year, Nintendo manages to do this in a way that makes their new devices seem like essential upgrades.
Let’s go back to 2001 for a moment. Nintendo releases the Game Boy Advance, a 32-bit handheld video game console unlike. It was pretty awesome. Two years later, Nintendo releases the Game Boy Advance SP, which noy only has a much more aesthetically appealing folding design, but comes with the long-rumored, never-seen (except on anything but a Nintendo product) backlit screen! With Nintendo embracing Thomas Edison’s scientific breakthrough a mere 220-ish years after its initial discovery, this was certainly an upgrade worth having, no? I mean, come on, it’s the future! Then another two years later, even though the DS was already on shelves released a year before, Nintendo released the Game Boy Micro, which was yet another redesign of the Game Boy Advance, except Holy iPod Generation, Batman! that thing was tiny! So forget the fact that there are three separate systems (four if you count the GBA player for the Gamecube) that can play these games, you can probably fit like five of these things in your back pocket!
Moving on past the GBA innovation, Nintendo released its next handheld, the dual-screen, touch-screen, Nintendo DS in 2004, a system so much more advanced it launched with a port of a seven year old Mario game! And Ping Pals! And then Nintendogs came out about a year later! Seriously, tons of potential right here!
But once again, Nintendo’s two-year cycles of ADD kick in and in 2006 they release the Nintendo DS lite, a redesign of the system with brighter screens, bigger styli, smaller size, fewer calories, and Atkins Diet approved! This was reportedly pretty awesome, because now you could play all those awesome DS games with a system that suddenly realized it was kinda sorta a little important to try to look pretty cool too.
Just last week, Nintendo continued its pattern of making itself obsolete every two years by announcing yet another redesign of the Nintendo DS, the DSiPod Touch at the Nintendo Conference with an announcement that went something like this:
Fanboy: “Why, surely there isn’t that much room for improvement! How could Nintendo possibly top itself again?”
Nintendo: “Fear not, kind fellows! For the new DSi is 12% thinner than the DS lite!”
Fanboy: “So it ain’t so! Now we can fit more Nintendo products in our pockets!”
Nintedo: “And you’ll have too, because we’ve removed the GBA slot!”
Fanboy: “Shock and awe!”
Nintendo: “And that’s not all! The DSi also has two .3 megapixel cameras (and that’s not a typo!) and an SD card slot so you can view pictures and listen to AAC music files (only!)”
Fanboy: “It’s a technological marvel!”
Nintendo: “It also has a built-in web browser, internal flash memory, and its own online store!”
Fanboy: “The innovation is blowing my mind! When does it come out in the United States?”
Nintendo: “Next April, after the holiday season, because we still can’t make up our mind on whether we want to actually try to make money or not!”
Fanboy: “Hooray!”
Whoo.
Seriously, I can understand Nintendo’s philosophy behind this, in that it didn’t set out to make the DSi the best MP3 player or web browser (which it did very well, by the way), but simply to add extra features to the DSi. Well, that’d be nice, if these additions weren’t so gimmicky. The two cameras (one facing forward, one facing the user) aren’t a terrible idea, but the camera qualities sure are, and how the closed unit looks uglier than the DS lite because of the eyesore-tastic camera location. The larger screens are nice and the web browser could actually be a little tempting (I admit it would be nice for those times where I want to check something on the internet in the middle of the night and I don’t want to wait for anything that can do so to turn on), as are the flash memory and possibilities with an online store with $8, $5, $2, and free games, but overall, the additions don’t make for a very convincing package.
The DSi is region locked. Its battery life is shot (3-4 hours on highest brightness setting). The online store’s point system uses the same points cards as the Wii’s online store does, but the points themselves are not interchangable between the two stores. The exclusion of MP3 compatability makes the music player nearly useless.
The problem I see with the new DSi is that for every new feature it adds, some of which I admit are pretty fancy, they manage to feel somewhat underwhelming (like the .3 MP cameras). I have no doubt that the online store has tons of potential (and missed potential, just like the Wii’s online store) and that Nintendo will think of great uses for the cameras, which begs the question of just how shafted are those people with DS systems sans camera. Not to mention that the cameras just make the system look ugly now.
I’m still using my original DS I got about a month after launch. I didn’t upgrade to the DS lite, and don’t see myself upgrading to the DSi either. If the new features sound good to you though, then I have no doubt that the DSi would be a nice investment. For me, I’m having a hard time even caring.
