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    First Thirty: DSi

    By Joe Fourhman | April 5, 2009

    dsi-mainNo worries about DSi shortages over here; every store I checked this morning was chock full of them! And you can have any color you want, as long as it’s black or blue.

    The black matte finish is very nice. I’ve been grubbing with it for half an hour and it remains charmingly resistant to fingerprints. Guess what, Nintendo grenaded the accessories market again… the DSi has a new stylus design (longer than the Lite’s stylus) and a new AC charger. The headset jack in the front is the same as the Lite’s. The volume control is now a digital +/- button (like a cell phone) instead of that fiddly slider on the Lite. There are camera icons on the L and R shoulder buttons that seem entirely unnecessary.

    There was a required System Update as soon as I turned it on and attempted to set up my WiFi. The DSi has the exact same WiFi settings as the DS Lite, and another three settings slots for “advanced” settings, which I assume will allow for the DSi to break into more secure WiFi environments. The manual mentions “Nintendo Zones” which I guess will serve as branded WiFi hotspots tailored for DSi usage. Has anybody heard of the term “Nintendo Zone” before?

    If you’ve been following the DSi all this time, there is little that will surprise you. The photo feature does all the silly crap you’ve seen demoed… lots of filters to mess with your pics, either live or after they’ve been snapped. The native format is JPG and the pics are reasonably nice, 640×480. If you save the pics to the SD card, you can easily pop them up on your computer. Here’s some of mine:

    Click either to see the unmolested DSi original file. Conker’s photo has one of the built-in frames applied to it. Speed lines!

    The DSi randomly selects one of your pictures to fill the top screen when you are at the system menu! Keen!

    When you first go into the photo menu, you get a brief tutorial showing off the filters and such. It also points out that the DSi will make a shutter click sound effect whether you have the volume muted or not! So there goes your plan for upskirts on the subway.

    My DSi says it can hold another 400 pics in its onboard memory. Maybe I’m an idiot, but I can’t seem to find a way to shift pictures from the SD card to the built-in memory and vice-versa.

    Here’s the SD card filepath. The DSi inserts a little “initialization file” onto your SD card.

    dsi-filepath

    As you can see, the JPGs are stored into the standard DCIM folder. They show up right away in iPhoto. Nintendo’s mystery file is buried inside the “private” folder.

    The SD card hinge seems like an engineering misfire. It is a thin strip of bendable plastic that goes out and down, not simply down. Weird.

    dsi-sddoor

    The music player only reads AAC files from your SD card (or M4A, which is the MPG wrapper that iTunes uses for AAC songs.) Seems strange that Nintendo would not support MP3, but that is no doubt due to the fees required for making a device MP3-compatible. Somebody correct me if I’m making an ass out of myself here. Audio file formats was not my major in college.

    You may have heard Nintendo crowing about how you can “play” with your music. This is a minor amusement at best. First of all, there are some bitchin’ visualizers. You can see an Excitebike-themed visualizer in this shot:

    dsi-music

    While the song is playing, you can screw with it live by warping the speed, or by adding in your own sound effects. There are some audio filters that sort-of-impressively turn your song into an instrumental (it subtracts the voice) or translates it into 8-bit beeps. These are all as easy as clicking buttons, and there is no delay to the song itself. Sure, sure. But somehow I doubt many people are going to use the DSi as an iPod-substitute and then want to make the tracks all sound like Old-Tyme Radio.

    I registered my DSi system at Club Nintendo for a free 90 day warranty extension, plus 160 coins!

    For the next six months, all DSi owners get a 1000-point credit to the DSiWare Store account. I’m not sure why Nintendo now has to have TWO fake currencies, Wii Points and DSi Points, but whatever.

    I used exactly zero of those points to download the free web browser. As you download something, Mario and the cast of SMB2 run around the screen filling a bucket which acts as a progress bar.

    The browser (which is very similar to the Wii’s Opera browser) takes up about 70 blocks of the DSi’s 1000 onboard memory blocks. Here’s what it does to Aeropause.com. The top screen shows a zoomed-out, normal-looking web browser view:

    dsi-web1

    While the bottom screen shows the highlighted area, all zoomed in and stuff.

    dsi-web2

    YouTube does not run. Looks like javascript does. The browser pulls the favicon.ico (top left), which is nice. Overall, it’s not anything you would call fast, but it’s not bad for free. I’m glad I never bought that $30 DS Lite Browser!

    When you download something, it initially shows up in your DSi menu as an unopened gift. Then you have to click the gift to have the application appear. Genius! This is one of those cutesy touches that proves Nintendo’s natural charm. Like the Help Cat from the Wii’s Photo Channel.

    Here at the end of DSi Day One, it seems obvious that the DSi is all about potential. I’m the slightest bit woozy from the $170 price tag. Seriously, is this thing $40 better than a DS Lite? Or just-under-half as good as a PS3? But I’m excited by the prospect of downloadable portable games and the new features will give future DSi-enhanced games a lot of power to draw from.

    Tags: , , , , ,

    Topics: DSi, First Thirty, Nintendo, Nintendo DS, Technology | Comments

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    • I had a DS for a while and then I got my iPhone and I sold it. I really don't do much portable gaming, mainly because the types of games available just never suited me. I had my DS for nearly a year and the only game I bought was Tetris. I think I will wait for the next generation of portable gaming, maybe then the games will appeal more to me.
    • InfinityDevil
      The only thing that made me wish I had a DS was Animal Crossing Wild World.

      If Sony ever brings AdhocParty to the US to turn heaps of adhoc-only games into online playable titles then I don't think I'll be the slightest bit tempted by the DS any longer. As it is I have a backlog of about five shrinkwrapped games I haven't played yet on my PSP.
    • StephenJMunn
      We have a blue one on preorder from Amazon, but it will likely take more than a week to get here. What do you think of the larger screens when playing your DS games?
    • To be honest, the bigger screens are the last thing I notice. Once you're playing, it's not like you're all WOW, THESE SCREENS ARE HUGE. You pretty much forget they're bigger than the Lite entirely.
    • StephenJMunn
      Amazon surprised us and shipped the DSi last Friday. It came in Monday's mail. I got it all set up for my wife and now I totally want one of my own. The blue is far nicer in person than it is in pictures. It's a hard color to describe. Where's my pantone book when I need it?!
    • Jordan_Snyder
      "So there goes your plan for upskirts on the subway."

      Well, Nintendo, you just lost another purchase. :D

      "I’m not sure why Nintendo now has to have TWO fake currencies, Wii Points and DSi Points, but whatever.

      I thought Nintendo decided to start calling them Nintendo Points now.

      --------------------

      I probably won't buy a DSi anytime soon (or ever), although it does sound appealing. I don't use my DS: Lite enough to justify the purchase of a DSi. I can't wait to see what Nintendo's next generation handheld will be.
    • lundy3311
      dude I corrected the gamespot guys son the Hotspot (their podcast) about the Nintendo points thing
      it was awesome hearing my name on the podcast
    • If you buy a new Nintendo Points card, you can turn that code into either Wii Points or DSiWare points. The stupid thing is that even though both your Wii and your DSi can be linked to your Club Nintendo account, they do not keep your Points in the same pool. Wii Points cannot be turned into DSi points and vice versa.
    • Jordan_Snyder
      They definitely need to let users link accounts on their DSi and Wii. If you want to buy a 500 point game on your Wii and DSi, you should be able to do that with only one 1000 point card. It's stupid of them to split the systems up like that.
    • lundy3311
      I'm wondering whether I should pick one of these up. I have a DS fat, but haven't played any games until recently when I got Final Fantasy 4. I think I should start catching up on DS games, or just sell it.
    • Dude, if you still have a DS fat, of course you should upgrade. The DS fat doesn't even light up.
    • I don't know. Basically adding a camera and an SD slot does not seem like enough to justify the purchase at this time. Also, taking away the GBA slot might still be cheesing a lot of people off due to losing compatibility.

      I think that in the long run, it will probably have a lot of promise with developers using the cameras and other tools to make more interesting things. Until then, it is probably a wait and see purchase, although my son has asked about one for his Birthday.

      Hey Fourhman, did you keep your other DS or did you trade it towards the DSi? Just curious.
    • Bah, nobody cares about the GBA slot. They haven't made a GBA game in years now, and the five DS titles that took advantage of the GBA slot are nothing special.

      But yeah, 170 clams is kind of a lot. I feel a little taken by Nintendo. The cool thing to do would be to bag the DS Lite entirely at retail (mark it down to $100) and sell the DSi at $140 or so. This will be an interesting experiment to see if people will still rush out for the latest model at a premium price without any generational upgrades. It worked going from GBA to GBASP and for the DS to DS Lite, but it didn't work for the GBA Micro.

      And I kept my Lite. Now I have two in-house DSes for any single-card multiplayer, which I have rarely enjoyed.

      Plus, with the DSi region-locked, my Lite is the only avenue for my import DS titles. Unless I import a Japanese DSi, I suppose. That's the only "backwards compatibility" I'm likely to care about.
    • harryO
      Dsi isnt region locked on the retail DS games, it's just the online Shop (DSiWare) that's different for each region... i doubt we will see many DSi exclusive games that are region locked reaching retail.
    • Well I definitely need to test that out with my import games. Ouendan ho!
    • Ouendan 2 worked fine, hooray!

      Although the DSi region-lock rumor has floating around since last October, it apparently applies to stuff exclusive to the DSi, like the DSiWare apps you mention... but presumably also to any upcoming "DSi-enhanced" games.
    • I am an idiot. Under "options" in the camera menu, you can copy pictures back and forth from DSi to SD card.
    • Doesn't sound like a $40 upgrade at all, especially when I just got my DS Lite in Christmas '07. I'm sure they will announce the next upgrade by E3 2010.

      I think I care more if they just rereleased Tetris DS so you don't have to buy it for around $50 on eBay.
    • foxhound492
      How do the D-pad and face buttons feel?

      I personally don't like the feel of the Lite's buttons. Is there any noticeable difference?
    • The L and R are much smaller than the Lite's, so there is a definite change in feel there. They are pleasantly clicky, I think the best click on the entire device.

      I'm comparing my DSi buttons to my launch day Lite's buttons, so there may be some age issues here, but I think the DSi's d-pad is stronger and clickier (in a good way), while the DSi X-Y-A-B buttons are a bit mushier. The DSi X-Y-A-B are definitely not as raised, which I don't like.
    • james braselton
      HI THERE I HOPE THAT NINTENDO WILL HAVE A MEMORY BLOCK USAGE INDICATOR ADDED AT THERE SHOP BEFORE YOU DOWN LOAD THE APP OR GAME
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