Nintendo announces new DS, Jim gets his Hulk rage on

Written by Jim Squires

Thursday, 02 October 2008 03:48

I'm torn (and this time it's not just my sphincter). Last night Nintendo unveiled their third generation DS, the DSi. And while it takes away the GBA slot (boo!) it offers up a host of improvements that make this thing worth buying.

Bigger screen? Check. Better sound? Check. But then we get into the real meat and potatoes. It has a camera. It'll take SD cards. And what are those SD cards for? Downloadable games from the new DSiWare Shop.

Everything else I can deal with -- I really can. They're all shiny new features that you can live without but make a nice upgrade, just like the DS Lite. But DSiWare is a big deal, and it's going to make me throw my current DS right in the crapper. To put it into perspective, imagine if 2 years after buying your 360 you were told that you'd need to buy a new model to buy things on Live Arcade. You'd go fucking apeshit, and rightfully so. That's what I'm doing -- I'm going apeshit. I'm going apeshit because Nintendo has just forced me to spend $150-$200 for a system I already own.

There's an unspoken deal between us and the hardware manufacturers. It's called a 5 year console cycle. We give you a few hundred bucks, you give us a five year break between purchases. Nintendo's just got to grease up that hog and give it to us train robber style. I for one don't like it one bit.

More system details here.

Comments (14) Add Comment

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written by Dan Zuccarelli, October 02, 2008

While I'm never happy about having to spend more money on a system (especially so soon after buying the DS and Lite) I'm pretty excited about the online shopping possibilities of the DSi. I am however curious if this new model is region free and if my flash card will still work.

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written by Ryan Hewson, October 02, 2008

Haha, I was just coming here to post this... yeah I'm pretty mixed on it. On one hand I share Jim's frustration in Nintendo's efforts to get everyone who bought a DS to buy another one by breaking the platform in two... on the other hand, all manufacturers do this (see Apple)... I guess it's all in the manner that they execute. You can iterate but when you add major un-upgradeable features to an existing platform, that's bad.

Also, after seeing my massive stack of 5 DS games that I barely touch, I'm going to wait and see what actually lands on the DS download service before I get annoyed that I don't have access.

Besides those cameras seem pretty crappy. VGA rez? That's decent for chat only. And at a paltry 67Mhz you aren't going to be video chatting. Actually... it's more confusing to me the more I look at it.

Anyways, boo to Nintendo for not making existing DS units work with the new service. That really is kind of skanky.

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written by Ryan Hewson, October 02, 2008

Oh and... AAC music playback only?? WTF

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written by ender.xeno, October 02, 2008

Yah, I'm done feeling guilty about the homebrew and the DS now..
also, so i have: 1 old original ds, 3 new ds lites (2 broke, 1 unusable). so i have to get ANOTHER one if i want the DSWare stuff. I'm super not happy with nintendo lately. Superduper not happy!!

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written by tratch, October 02, 2008

The point is though, you're going to buy it. And so am I. I've got 3 DSes so far and this will make 4. (In fairness though I had a phat, gave it to my mom when I upgraded to a Lite, and bought my fiance a Lite so I could keep her off mine.)

Nintendo knows that we might complain but we'll still shell out the cash, and they're sure as shit going to take advantage of it.

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written by Savage, October 02, 2008

It seems cool and I like the matte finish, but I'm a little underwhelmed at this time about this. (Cameras, why do I need another camera gadget? Will the next DS version have a phone?) There's really nothing saying wow about this product, but I imagine I'll buy it. (Mostly because I've scratched my current black DS up.)

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written by rdaneel72, October 02, 2008

The PSP is also on it's third iteration. But you hate Nintendo.
A new DS costs half the price of a new 360. But you hate Nintendo.
The DSi has everything the gamersphere was asking for; internal memory, SD card support, downloadable games. But you hate Nintendo.

Why do you hate Nintendo?????????

The 5-year cycle never applied to handhelds. How many Gameboys/GBAs did you buy?

I'm just glad I waited to replace my beat-up launch DSLite. I can get another year out of it.

Lots of other cool stuff announced today. Punch-out Wii. Sin and Punishment 2. Wii Speak channel. Playing VC/WiiWare games right off the SD card. Club Nintendo in North America.

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written by Jim Squires, October 02, 2008

@rdaneel. FACT: There are no games I can play on a 3rd gen PSP that I can't play on a first.

The DS costs half the price of a 360 because (surprise surprise) it's not the same fucking system. If I bought a $30,000 car and they then introduced a model that could fly, I'd have to spend another $30,000. Price isn't the issue. Selling me the same product twice is.

And I had ONE GameBoy and ONE GBA. You know why? Because I could play all the GBC games on my 1989 launch day phattie, and I could play all the GBA games on my non-backlit GBA. I only have a Lite because we briefly considered being a 2 DS family (we eventually sold the phat).

And yes. I hate Nintendo. I hate them because they do shit like this. I hate them because you defend it. Nintendo can go fuck up a tree and shit broken glass through a cardboard tube for all I care.

That being said, I loves me my Wii Williams Pinball.

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written by rdaneel72, October 02, 2008

I meant: there are no DSi games that can't be played on the original DS.

I meant: buying another 360 for extra features would be much more expensive than buying another DS is.

I'm not defending Nintendo's practice of incremental upgrades. That said, I'm still going to be buying this new DSi when it comes out. I'm not happy about it, but you can't fault Nintendo for making money.

And really, Jim, if I didn't come here to defend Nintendo, who would? I could go over to GoNintendo or Infendo and preach to the choir, but this is much more entertaining. Isn't the arguing over ideas and ideologies that differ from your own what makes this country great?

Besides, you made me a Jeopardy question. You had to know that would only encourage me further.

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written by Jim Squires, October 03, 2008

"I meant: there are no DSi games that can’t be played on the original DS."

You're wrong. That's the gist of my post. I CAN NOT play DSiWare games on my DS. Hence the great Nintendo fuckjob.

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written by Bojy, October 03, 2008

I'm completely with Jim, if i can't play DLC without buying a system i already own, then i'm being screwed. If i owned a 360 arcade, i could pony up at any point to play DLC by simply buying an accessory (Hard drive / Memory card). This way, if you want to play DLC you have to buy a whole new system, which is wrong.

I think its beyond wishful thinking to have a GBA sd adapter to convert an existing DS....

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written by Faith, October 03, 2008

I just got my Nintendo DS like 2 years ago too and now I'm finding I might want to buy this new DS too.

But putting out another $200 on a handheld is a bit much when my current handheld is perfectly fine and it will play the same DS games as the new one, except the download games.

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written by rdaneel72, October 03, 2008

"I CAN NOT play DSiWare games on my DS. " Ah, fair enough.

Well, you could just get Elite Beat Agents or Starfox Command, either of which will SCRATCH THE HOLY HELL OUT OF YOUR TOUCHSCREEN, then justify buying a new DS.

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written by TheBBPS.com (Bits, Bytes, Pixe, February 23, 2009

[...] gamers and rich-kid importers have had their hands on the Nintendo DSi for a while now, and it didn’t seem like North American would see the new handheld until the [...]