DSI Console

Nintendo announced the DSi Console on 2nd October 2008, making it the newest version of the Nintendo family of products. The DSi console is the third version of the hugely popular Nintendo DS series and was released in Japan in time for Christmas 2008.

The DSi is slated to launch in Europe in the spring of 2009. It is anticipated that the console will go out of stock almost immediately after becoming available with UK retailers, such is the huge volume of customers looking to buy the product. Retailers are expecting a similar response to the launch of the console as with the Nintendo Wii, which sold out before Christmas in 2006.

Nintendo DSi Console

Following on from the hugely popular Nintendo DS and Nintendo DS Lite, the DSi console becomes the third member of the Nintendo DS series. The manufacturers have taken on customer feedback and have used this to improve the console with many great new features and enhancements.

For those not already familiar with the DS series, it is a handheld console. Nintendo have focused on improving the portability of the console and had to balance making it as thin as possible without sacrificing durability. As a result, DSi is 2.6mm or about 12% thinner than DS Lite. As a consequence of this effort, they decided to remove the slot for GameBoy Advance software.

As with similar technology such as Laptops and Mobile Phones, customers want smaller, lighter products while still getting larger screen sizes. Nintendo have responded to this with an 8% increase over the current 3-inch LCD to make it 3.25-inches. This is approximately a 17% increase in visual area per screen. They have also improved both the speaker volume and sound quality.

Nintendo DSi Camera

New to the Nintendo DSi are the implementation of camera and audio player functions. While these functions now exist on the majority of mobile phone handsets, Nintendo believe that the DSi serves as an entertainment centre, fulfiling all your photographic, audio and gaming needs.

While most mobile phones focus on increasing pixels and resolution, Nintendo have taken the opposite approach. While the DSi only has a 0.3 megapixel resolution, the DSi Camera software includes 11 types of special camera lenses. This means DSi can take pictures by utilizing a variety of special effects on a real-time basis.

You can change the whole picture to black and white, colour the portions you touch or exchange the existing colour with a new one on the area you touch, make a composite picture using preinstalled frames or make the frames for yourselves, draw a variety of graffiti on the pictures, use the technology to recognize human faces and put glasses and moustaches on them, combine two people’s faces with different portions of one’s features, and confirm to what degree two faces are resembling by utilizing the face-recognition engine. These functions can be enjoyed with the unique Nintendo user interfaces that you are familiar with.

Nintendo DSi Audio Player

Similarly, the audio function allows users to play with and maniuplate sounds. Some typical functions include the ability to change the pitch and the speed separately by using the Touch Screen. The ability to freely manipulate the audio pitch and the speed can expand how the audio player can be used in more practical ways as well. You can fast-forward a Podcast to economize the time. When you use the repeat-run function with the stylus, it becomes easier to copy the music, to play a musical instrument or to practice foreign languages.

This adds a fun, unique twist to the DSi console – not currently found in mobile phones. It maintains Nintendo’s reputation for fun innovation and adds great value to the console. The Nintendo DSi should be viewed as a toy with which to make music. It has a built in microphone, allowing you to input your own sounds and add to the audio experience.

An SD memory card can be inserted into DSi, and it can be used for both the camera and audio player functions. To make use of Nintendo DSi Sound, you will need to store sound data in the AAC format on an SD card. As for the Nintendo DSi Camera, if you have stored its pictures on an SD memory card, you can view them on Wii by using its Wii Photo Channel.

Nintendo DSi Shop

Like the Nintendo Wii, the DSi console has internal memory, allowing you to store and organise your data. You can download content from the DSi shop and carry it around on your console.

As the very first software title to be offered through DSi Shop, Nintendo will start distributing the DSi Browser free of charge simultaneously with the launch of DSi. The DSi Browser is an Internet browser, co-developed by Opera and Nintendo and comprehensively tuned exclusively for Nintendo DSi. This tuning made the browser faster, and now that it can be incorporated into the device, the utility aspect has been significantly enhanced.