dsi

SAN FRANCISCO--In a keynote address short on news, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata revved up a packed Game Developers Conference house here Wednesday morning with tales of the company's design strategies.

Nintendo had been mum in advance of the speech, leaving many in attendance hoping that the company would announce something big, along the lines of a hot new game or even a piece of new hardware. In the end, though, Iwata's revelations were limited to three new games and a new storage infrastructure for the Wii virtual console.

The games included Rhythm Heaven, an American version of a … Read more

Two weeks ago, we gave you an exclusive hands-on First Look at the Nintendo DSi, the company's second refresh of the DS portable gaming system. While we had to hold back some juicy details about the DSi, we can now let you in on all the fun.

The DSi Shop, which will go live April 5, will offer downloadable games and applications via the DSi Shop that you can store on either the 256MB of internal storage or on an SD card. When Nintendo visited us a few weeks ago, we got to play some DSiWare titles like WarioWare … Read more

Word from the Nintendo Developer Conference in London suggests the company is encouraging third-party developers to think outside of the box when it comes to DSi downloadable content on the DSi Shop.

While Nintendo has focused its WiiWare platform around games, it seems the DSi might be a viable platform for applications outside of gaming. While we know games will be available--there are already plenty circulating in Japan--the unique photo, microphone, and touch-screen capabilities embedded in the system could make for some very interesting third-party applications.

The possibilities are potentially endless. Think about it: a Facebook app? Maybe a … Read more

Ace reporter Caroline McCarthy joins the show today to give us a little preview of South by Southwest, while we ream Justin Yu for totally being a pushover on our competing podcast "Bore Out Loud." Caroline says there isn't really much scheduled that will be ground-breaking this year, but that's because The 404 isn't there.

McCarthyism says that she's got the connection to get us on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon." We think we can get on if Diggnation can get on. Letterman ain't having us after a week with U2.

Jeff and Caroline have a pale-off. It's pretty damn close, but we've got to say Jeff wins this one. He temporarily blinded Wilson yesterday when he sat underneath a light when shooting the brand new Nintendo DSi. Speaking of which, CNET gets an exclusive first look at the device, and we think Jeff is a believer now. It only took 100 million Nintendo DSs to get it done. Also, check out Jeff on Loaded today, where he gives his first impressions of the new Resident Evil 5.

Finally, we end the show on a classy note. A man has managed to get a USB flash drive installed on his prosthetic finger. The jokes ensue when Justin comments that he'd love to get a USB drive attached to a certain peripheral on his body. This is truly the home of the "Nerdy dirty."

Our contest is still going on. Send in your suggestions to the show. We love hearing them, especially the international ones. Much praise goes to brisebanelistener for quite possibly one of the funniest voice mails ever!

Nintendo stopped by our CNET New York offices Wednesday afternoon to give us a sneak peek at the brand new Nintendo DSi. We had plenty of hands-on time with the portable gaming device and have a good idea what we can expect from the various built-in media features.

We also got a taste of some features we're just not allowed to talk about yet. Unfortunately, we weren't able to hold on to a DSi, but we were assured we'd be getting our review sample soon.

For now, check out our First Look video of the DSi where … Read more

Speculation abounds over Nintendo's intentions with its new DSi. Is it designed to compete with the iPod Touch, thanks to its music playback function? Is it taking aim at mobile phones with its two cameras?

The argument might be made that it is trying to compete with Apple's iPhone-like music player, which is increasingly being marketed to gamers. But Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata has a different take on that suggestion.

On the company's Nintendo DSi page over the weekend, Iwata expressed that the notion of Nintendo trying to compete with the iPod is ridiculous. In his "Iwata Asks" post on the site, he said the following:

Nintendo doesn't have any intention of directly competing with existing products, but the mass media has a tendency to portray everything as a rivalry between opposing companies. It seems (that) some people have the impression that we want to compete with cell phones or the iPod, that putting cameras or music players in our devices is out of character for us.

I hope those who have such an impression will take an interest in what Nintendo can make when it dedicates itself to pleasing as many people as possible who pick up a DS, and I hope they'll actually pick one up themselves.

But as much as Iwata and his team might try to disregard other game-friendly gadgets on the market, he explains that "it can be next to impossible with words alone to draw a distinction with previous products."

With two 0.3-megapixel cameras and a music player that can't compete on any level with the iPod, I don't think it's too difficult to agree with Iwata. But assuming that Nintendo truly doesn't want to compete with Apple or other media device manufacturers, why are those features there in the first place? Are they just extra add-ons that we probably won't care about?… Read more

Nintendo frequently relaunches its products in different colors, a fact we have gotten quite used to. And even before the new DSi makes its way out of Japan, the company has announced new colors. Behold the pink, green, and blue DSi gaming handhelds, which will be available only in Japan.

Launch dates for Europe (April 3) and Australia (April 2) have also been announced, aside from the April 5 rollout for the U.S. While the U.S. will get the DSi in black and blue, Europe and Australia will have it in either black or white. As for Asia … Read more

A Nintendo of America representative told TechRadar earlier this week that Nintendo's latest entrant into the handheld gaming market, the DSi, has an 'i' attached to the end of its name because "the addition of two cameras gives the system its own "eye" on things." The representative also said it's symbolic of the personal "I."

Cryptic branding aside, are the two cameras really so compelling? I don't see it.

I realize that adding two cameras to the DSi means Nintendo can use that functionality to enhance games and prove that it too can expand the feature set of mobile devices, just like Sony has with the PSP, but I simply don't see how two cameras will somehow improve the experience of my DS.… Read more

With estimated unit sales approaching 100 million worldwide, Nintendo has proven itself time and time again as the industry ruler of the portable console market. With the DSi--the second refresh of the Nintendo DS--we're starting to see the company move in an evolutionary direction with its flagship handheld.

The DSi takes with it most of the features the DS Lite had to offer, but adds new multimedia capabilities. The DSi has been on sale in Japan since November 1 of last year and has already sold well over an astonishing 1 million units. Now that Nintendo has announced that the DSi will go on sale April 5 in North America, it certainly leaves everyone asking one big question, "Should I buy one?"

First, let's look at what exactly separates the new DSi from the DS Lite. In terms of actual form-factor, the difference between the two portables is negligible. The DSi is slightly slimmer, but you're not going to see the massive change in size like we saw when Nintendo upgraded the original DS to the DS Lite. What you may notice is that both screens are a quarter of an inch larger. The DSi hardware also actually eliminates the Game Boy Advance slot found on the Lite, so you won't be able to play older Game Boy Advance games or DS titles that make use of the port, such as "Guitar Hero: On Tour." … Read more