The DSi: Nintendo’s shrewdest gaming move yet
October 9, 2008 by Insider Staff
Thought the iPhone and iPod touch were a threat to the heavyweights of handheld gaming? Think again. Nintendo’s just unleashed its latest big hitter, the DSi, and it’s all set to send Apple packing.
When Nintendo dished up the DSi it would’ve been easy to scoff at the built-in camera, music-playing abilities and included web browser as the answer to Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch.
Within hours of its unveiling, the most short sighted of pundits were pre-empting a failure on Nintendo’s part, decrying the “pathetic” 3.2 megapixel camera, lambasting the lack of high capacity SD card support, and gleefully pouring scorn on its music-playing software.
After all, this is a games machine. Is Nintendo really about to challenge Apple on the MP3-playing battlefield? Does the company really think it’ll topple compact cameras, or replace the mobile phone for browsing the web?
In a word, no. Nintendo’s launch was a shewd move, designed to give gamers just enough new toys to warrant an upgrade, without treading on too many toes, or hiking the price too much.
After all, the DSi will retail for the same £100 as its predecessor. Not bad for a product that’s 12% slimmer, able to be upgraded with SD cards, and packing a few new bells and whistles, all at a price £70 lower than the iPod touch.
Sure, many of the DSi’s new accouterments have already been seen inside the PSP, but then Sony’s machine was always marketed as a portable media hub, serving up full-on entertainment in a larger-than-comfortable shell.
What Nintendo is attempting is much different. It’s keeping the DSi positioned as a gaming machine, but with a price that’s cheaper than Apple’s offering, and just as capable as Sony’s.
And then there’s the camera. The PSP lacks this skill completely, as does the iPod touch, leaving the iPhone as Nintendo’s only competitor. But is it a competitor? The iPhone’s lens can be accessed by games, as can Nintendo’s, but so far developers have been reluctant, or unsure how to make use of it. Nintendo has a pedigree in innovative gaming, and almost certainly has its own camera-specific titles on the way. Once they’ve been used to kick start developers imaginations, there’ll be no stopping the DSi and its next-gen handheld titles.
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[...] comes to he who waits, including the Nintendo DSi. And we’ve been waiting. Waiting since November when it was first launched in Japan, but now [...]