Nintendo DS (Titanium)

Pros: Dual Screens; Touch Pad; Plays GBA games; Comfortable to hold; Great Value for price; Nintendo titles (Mario, Wario); WI-FI, chat, downloadable games in the future; Price of new titles -$39 and below

Cons: Graphics not as good as PSP; No control stick; lack of console titles (EA Sports); Need add-ons for MP3/video playback

Summary: The DS is great handheld gaming device. Even though the graphics are not up to par with the Sony PSP, they're definately a step up from the GBA. The dual screens give many games a new perspective.

Speaking of Gameboy, I can play all of kids favorite games on this machine, so when I finally get tired of this unit I can give to my kids without having to purchase more games. Until then, there some good titles out there (WarioWare Twisted, Metroid, Asphalt Racer, ZooKeeper, Ridger Racer) that are cool to play on this device. Having the touch screen and mic do make the experience of playing games on this device feel completely fresh. My only gripe is there should be more sport titles for this device (imagine being able to use the touchpad to draw up a play for you team to run...wow that would be cool.)

It would have been nice if Nintendo would have included MP3 and Video playback "out of the box". However, "PLAY YAN" is on the way late this year in the USA (it's available in Japan - www.lik-sang.com $89 USD). Play Yan is a media player that plugs into the gameboy slot (works with GBA as well). It accepts SD cards and comes with software to allow you to play your favorite MP3, AVI, MOV, etc.. My guess is this add-on will probably sell for under $50. If you're like myself and can't wait until then take a look at Movie Advance (www.movieadvance.com and www.lik-sang.com $24 USD..also on EBAY). This neat add-on use a Compact Flash card instead of SD, but does the same things as Play Yan plus allow you to play SNES games that you can download (see www.gbafilm.com). Sound quality is great for music (better quality can be had using CD as source, but MP3 still sound pretty decent). Video quality is also decent especially when convert using the standard and Hi modes (remember this is not a dvd player).

Nintendo has also signed a agreement with Palm to licensee their OS to allow the DS to be used as PDA. This suite of tools expected to be on the market later this year is called V-Pocket (set to debut at E3).

The DS was never really meant to compete head to head with the PSP. Nor was it to be a stopgap or bridge until the next GBA. It was meant to be new breed gaming device aim at the 18+ market. If the PDA tools (V-Pocket) and Media Player (Play Yan) had been on the market before the launch of PSP my belief is that more people would definate see the value of this device. I only hope Nintendo hurries up with these add-ons. Until then this a still a great gaming device with a lot of unfulfilled potential.