Nintendo DSi to debut April 5 in US
Today, Nintendo announced that the next generation of its DS handheld gaming console will be released on April 5 in the Americas, just one day later than last month’s predictions. The DSi has been available in Japan since November, and within the first two days 170,779 units were sold, amounting to more than 85% of the initial shipment, according to Enterbrain. Both of Nintendo’s premier game systems, the Wii and DS, have consistently dominated the video game market in sales, and more than 3.04 million DS units were sold in 2008. Nintendo’s handheld systems are an evolving breed, which go through several iterations before a new generation is released. Pivotal to maintaining this evolutionary flow is backwards compatibility, and the DSi is the first of the DS generation to drop support for the previous generation, the Game Boy Advance.
But where it loses the GBA cartridge slot, it has gained an SD slot, which also facilitates a slimmer chassis design and potential for a whole new family of homebrew mods. It also gives the DSi space for downloadable games, which are now available through the DSiWare app store. To connect to Wi-Fi to use the new app store or to play online games, the DSi includes support for WPA security. The DS and DS Lite did not support any security above WEP, so older games reportedly still must connect via WEP to play online, despite the DSi’s support for WPA. The DSi incorporates two cameras into the unit, which offers developers yet another kooky way to control games. The earliest DSi shop games in Japan (region locked) have only just touched upon some of the things that can be done with the cameras. The DSi will retail for $169.99.
Source: Betanews
Comments(9)
cool i me and my gf just have the fat ds.
r4sdhc is good enough for me!
I think the DSi is being overrated like a lot:
1 – bigger screen means the old games have been stretched up
2 – camera and bigger screens mean shorter battery life
3 – build in internet browser (so they just say f*ck you to all the people who bought the opera browser)
4 – no more gba slot (yes there are people who still play those games (not me))
Can't wait for the European release … I won't buy one of those but the prices for the DS Lite and Orginal DS will drop significantly and I can finally pick one of those up
I thought it was coming out with blue instead of white
Since this has an SD slot does that mean that an R4 cartridge (or similar) won't be required to play "backed up" games anymore?
no more R4,the crack will be like either psp pandora battery or Wii' homebrew channel(The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess), just wait n see, patience is a virtual……
Yes, it all comes down to the R4 capacity.
My son has a DS with a CycloEvolution card and an 8GB chip. I know he'd love the new one, but not unless the card still works.
I guess we'll have to wait and see.
there are already new carts that supports DSi, not sure if the old ones would work, it might not be as easy as a new firmware update im afraid…
The old carts don't support the DSi
However there are already some new cards like the DSTTi