Nintendo DSi
Pop quiz people: I want you to name me one company, videogames or otherwise, in the entire world currently in a better situation then Nintendo. You can’t. That’s because there isn’t one. What Nintendo is doing given this economic climate is completely baffling and defies and and all kinds of logic. They’re actually talking about raising the price of the Wii in Great Britain! Nintendo is no longer a videogame company; they’re a cultural phenomenon.
The most amazing part of this whole thing is that they’ve done it while infuriating the core market that has kept them afloat for years no matter how stupid and unjustified their arguments are. My personal opinion on the whole Nintendo thing is that I think it’s fantastic that games are becoming more mainstream and just because the games that are mainstream aren’t the games Nintendo’s detractors like doesn’t make them bad and doesn’t mean the games they like will stop being made, so everybody wins right? Well Nintendo is trying to keep the trendy train going by releasing the Nintendo DSi, and it looks as though Nintendo has no means of stopping any time soon.
So let’s start with the newer design. In a word? Slick. First off, I love the blue. I know most people don’t, but I think it’s pretty fresh. Also while the DS Lite had a shiny finish, the DSi does not, meaning the thing doesn’t get smothered in fingerprints, which is nice. You could make the argument that the color and finish make this thing look more toyish, but I think it’s an improvement. Besides, it is a toy so pull your head out of your ass. The power slider has been replaced with a normal button which is now under the D-Pad, and the new SD card slot is now where the power slider used to be. The volume slider has also been made into volume buttons now located on the left hand side of the machine instead of on the bottom left corner. The biggest improvement is in the buttons themselves. They are much tighter feeling, with all of them having a nice clickyness to them, particularly the L & R buttons, which are much better. The machine is slimmer overall, but you’d never really notice this unless doing a direct comparison between the two. My only gripe about the new design is that there is a slight squeak if you slowly close the clamshell, but hopefully that is just new plastic on new plastic and it will go away.
When you first turn it on, you’ll do a basic setup process. While going through this, you’ll notice that the new OS has a very Wii-like feel to it. Everything has a nice, clean look to it, and it is a vast improvement over the menus on the old DS. At the end of the process, you’ll make a nametag for some reason. You’ll put in your name, then it will ask for a catchphrase. Because I am a total dork and had just finished watching Wrestlemania (which, except for Shawn Michaels Vs. The Undertaker fight, sucked), the first thing that popped into my head was “You can’t see me!”, so there you go.
After the initial setup, you’ll be sent to the main menu where it will request that you go the photo mode and try out the cameras. Both lenses are 0.3 mega pixel, which is perfectly acceptable for pictures seen on these screens. You can switch cameras on the fly, and there’s a truckload of different options to make your pictures as fucked up and distorted as you want them to be. This would all be really cool if I was eight. This isn’t really a fault since I’m obviously not the type of person who would dick around with something like this, but if I did enjoy taking pictures of myself and plastering cat ears on the photo I would be all over this.
After that excursion, I popped back to the new main menu, which is, once again, very Wii-like. It’s very similar to the channels on the Wii menu, but instead of 12 per screen, they’re laid out on one giant like with a scroll bar on the bottom. It’s well designed and easy to navigate just like everything else. The next thing I wanted to try out was the DSi shop, and upon entry you will be greeted with another new addition to the handheld: firmware updates! From here you’ll set up your wireless connection which is much easier to do then it was on the DS, as it is compatible with more recent security infrastructures. [ed - Unless you're John.]
After that was taken care of, I popped onto the DSi shop and was treated to a lovely little surprise from Nintendo. Up until October 5th, if you buy a DSi and log into the store you will automatically be given 1,000 points to buy whatever you want, which is a great gesture from Nintendo. The menu is (say it with me now) very Wii like and easy to navigate. The first thing available is a free to download web browser from Opera, which you should ignore entirely as it is a unintuitive broken mess and a waste of space. Speaking of space, I didn’t know this before I bought a 1GB SD card just for my DSI, but the system does include about 1,000 blocks of internal storage. After I downloaded two games, the browser, and took a few photos, I had 852 blocks left. Considering the size of the games is much smaller then games on the Wii and the save slots are saved on the cartridges and not on the memory, I’d say that fridge might just be big enough. However if you want the larger fridge, a $7 1GB card gets you over 7,700 blocks, so you’d be set. One other cool feature is the ability to tie your Club Nintendo account to your DSI to make earning points easier.
My only big gripe with the DSiWare shop is the same I have with the Wii Shop: I can’t just buy the points I need. So after I bought Birds & Beans (fun little time waster) and Warioware Snapped! (broken piece of shit) I had 300 points left. There’s a puzzle game called Aquia worth 500 points that I would like to buy. I need $2 worth of points, but I can only buy them in $10 increments. That’s lame on Wii and it’s lame here too. Also, I wish there was a way for the Wii and DSi to share points tied to one account, but you can’t do that either, which also sucks.
So after everything was set up, updated, downloaded, and fine-tuned to my liking, it was time for the biggest test of all: playing some damn games on the thing. My big DS game right now is Retro Game Challenge so I thought I’d give that a go. The screens are about 10% bigger on the DSI, which I really didn’t notice that much. However, the big difference you’re going to notice are the vastly improved speakers. The music and sound are crisp and removed from that tinny sound the old speakers made. The battery life on the system is good but not as long as it was on the Lite, which is a bit of a disappointment; but it’s still way better then the PSP, so it’s not so bad. Lastly, while I haven’t tested this out first hand, apparently the mic is much more responsive.
So the big question is if the thing is worth $170. The answer really depends. If you’re a DS super-freak and play the thing every day and the idea of DSiWare games appeals to you, then I would say yes simply because I don’t think the DS 2 is coming out as soon as some people are predicting. For everyone else I’d wait for a price drop to upgrade. Also many of the big game stores are doing trade boosts on DS Lites if you buy a DSi. Game Crazy gave me $90 for my old Lite when I got mine. While I do think the price is a little steep, the modifications they’ve made are enough to warrant a recommendation on my part, but my recommendation ain’t gonna do shit when Ellen starts giving them away on her show. It’s not the revolution the DS was, but it’s a nice little evolution.
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Tags: dsi, handheld gaming, nintendo
April 13th, 2009 at 9:49 am
I agree with most of your thoughts on the DSi, except for a few:
1) Getting online. I had a bitch of a time as the DSi apparently doesn’t support “g” settings. Eventually I had to go into my router and remove that setting.
2) The shoulder buttons. I prefer the DS Lite’s shoulder buttons as they sort of hang over the edge making it easier to push them. I do, however, like the “clickiness” of the buttons on the DSi. I forgot to mention that in this week’s podcast, but they are more “clicky” than “squishy”, which I like.
3) On the upcoming podcast, we debated the “generosity” of Nintendo providing 1,000 points. It’s lame as hell to bitch about getting “free” stuff, I know. But as you alluded to in your first paragraph: Nintendo isn’t giving shit away for free. We theorized that they just jacked up the price of the machine by $10 to make up for the 1,000 points. The good thing is that you can spend them any way you want. Again, silly to debate this point as it’s in the realm of “nothing pleases us”, but just an amusing point I wanted to make.
4) The fridge. Fuck the fridge. Once again, you cannot run games directly from the SD card. Seriously Nintendo: WTF? Or maybe, Seriously Nintendo: Fuck you!
April 14th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
That Shawn Michaels/Undertaker match was EPIC! Easily one of the top 3 matches of all time………I mean, yeah..DSi….nifty!
April 14th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Sorry guys, but I’ve got a new rule: something can only be “epic” if it’s real.
April 14th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
You mean like Final Fantasy?
April 14th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Yes. Exactly like Final Fantasy.