So this DSi thing...

Nintendo is the king of making people buy stuff twice. They make a decent product, loads of people eventually buy it and just around the time it hits critical mass, they make a change to it. Sometimes it's slight like offering different colors. Sometimes they add functionality or make subtle improvements to the hardware. And for some reason millions upon millions of people find a reason to buy the piece of hardware of software again despite already owning a perfectly good older, or in some cases original version. To their credit, the products they make are stellar and solid enough that you are actually buying a 2nd product instead of replacing a broken or malfunctioning product. My original clunky Gameboy still works to this day. I've been to the Nintendo store in New York and saw one that had been taken to Iraq during Desert Storm and survived a firebomb. For the most part I've been resistant to this. I did get a Gameboy Color because I didn't have my original with me in college and I really wanted to play this crazy game called Pokemon and the cost of making the drive home and back was relative to the cost of just buying one of the newer better Gameboys. I never owned a GBA and came close to buying one but that's around the time the DS was announced so I figured I'd just wait for that. Resistance however is not immunity. Last week I decided to get the new and improved DSi. Partially because I never upgraded to the DS lite, but mostly because with all the updated functionality built into it I know the phase out is on the way so I might as well upgrade while Nintendo is still giving incentives to do so.

The first incentive is once you've purchased the thing and log onto the DSi store you are given 1000 DSi points ($10) to buy DSi Ware with. This offer is only good until October of this year so tick-tock everyone on the fence. Also as with any other Nintendo purchased console if you register it on Club Nintendo you warranty is extended by 90 days (useless considering I've never had or known a Nintendo product to fail aside from 1st Gen Wiis who couldn't handle Smash Bros) and you also get 160 coins to redeem for prizes from Nintendo. This is the only Nintendo console you get coins for and I can't image this offer lasting long.

So that's enough about the extenuating factors. Since I'm upgrading from the original DS my thoughts on it will differ greatly from those who had DS lites. For starters, the screen is huge and much brighter. It has 5 brightness settings instead of the 2 on my previous unit. It is much less clunky and can actually fit in my pocket without having that old movie cliche line which I won't reprint here begin to cycle through my head whenever I put it in my pocket. I have long fingers and this feels much better in my hands. The pad and buttons are placed higher so I don't have to bend my thumbs as much which made extended play sessions quite uncomfortable. The buttons are also much springier. The interface has changed and is now more similar to the Wii interface where you scroll through your options. This was necessary because you can now download games directly onto the console. The resolution hasn't changed though so if you're like me know what happens when screen size increases without a change in resolution you'll be spotting a few "imperfections" here and there. The Wifi now works with WPA security so for the first time every my DS can connect to my wifi. You have to go into advanced settings to do it but it's not too troublesome. It has a web browser you can download for free. Another reason to early adopt is the free web browser because they did the same with the Wii and then decided to charge 500 points ($5) for it later. Honestly though, the browser is crap. It runs out of memory on every page you actually want to view (even gmail), if you're at home you probably have several better ways of getting online, and if you have a decent cell phone you wouldn't care about it. I suppose in a pinch at a coffee house it'll do ok. The DSi has two cameras one facing you and the other facing everything else. All you can do right now is take pictures and play with them, but eventually this will change. It also has an SD card slot you can use to load and unload photos and music and DSi Ware games. Yes this is yet another device capable of playing music (see my comment about the web browser). DSi Ware games can only be played from the DSi's internal memory and not from the SD card, so if you buy a lot of games you'll be playing the transfer back and forth game a lot as well. Picto chat is still there and it's easier to mess around with due to the increased screen size which is also .5" bigger than the lite's screen. Oh and there is no GBA slot. That's about it. For all other intents and purposes it's the exact same thing. It's like a friend of yours coming back from the weekend with a tattoo a piercing and having lost 30lbs or so. The battery is supposed to last 11 hours on the lowest brightness setting. John Davison from What They Play said they tested it and it lasted about 9 hours, which is pretty good. It can survive a flight from the west coast to London and I may put that to the test myself should another opportunity arise.

There aren't any DSi Ware games that has peeked my interest. I've been enjoying GTA Chinatown Wars on it as of late and much more with the improved hardware features of the DSi. If you want a reason to upgrade, I can't give it to you even if you were in my position. If your in the market for a DS and it's you first one, this is the one to buy as it will be able to keep up with what Nintendo and other developers have planned for the system going forward, but you will also effectively be cutting yourself off from a gigantic library of quality GBA games. I suppose new buyers aren't too worried about that last bit. There are incentives to buy it sooner than later, but to be quite honest, by the time this one reaches critical mass the price it's selling for will likely outweigh the current incentives. And that's it.