Product Mini Profile Nintendo DS Hardware in: Nintendo DS links » p/reviews user reviews faqs/guides

The DSi made waves after its official unveiling yesterday at Nintendo's Fall press conference, and much of its appeal will stem from the new built-in multimedia features absent from the original DS models. You might say the updates are intended to bring the DS handheld closer in featureset to the Sony PlayStation Portable and Apple iPhone, but Nintendo's already prepared an answer for that.

In an interview with Japanese business wire Nikkei Net (they first broke the story of a "new" DS), Nintendo president Satoru Iwata denies the DSi's features like audio playback and a built-in camera were added to create a DS handheld which do roughly do what its similiarly portable competition (gaming focused or no) can already do. The DSi was designed simply to make it even more ubiquitous with the average user:

We wanted users to have the device on them at all times... By downloading subway maps and other things, for instance, the DSi can be useful for applications other than playing games. We wanted to create an offering that would fit naturally into people's everyday lives.

Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime wouldn't want you thinking the DS has moved away from being a game console first as well. Speaking to X-Play:

"It's all about the entertainment, and so that's why we're stressing that you shouldn't think of this as the world's best digital camera or the world's best audio player. You need to look at it through a lens of entertainment, and certainly through that lens it's going to over-deliver against expectations.

"...all of that will work great but again, in our view, what we offer is that added level of entertainment, and that's why you'll want to carry this in your pocket all the time."

Both Iwata and Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime have a dream of selling seeing one DS per person, and the DSi was designed to ultimately expand the already large DS market. Despite announcing the DSi well ahead of its North American release timeframe thanks to the Japanese announcement, Fils-Aime isn't worried about Nintendo losing potential DS Lite customers who would now rather wait for the DSi. Fils-Aime anticipates the most fervent DSi customers at the outset will be the DS faithful, and he envisions scenarios where they hand down their current DS models to friends or family while they make a grab for the DSi themselves once it launches in Japan later this year, and in other territories sometime 2009.

UBS analyst Ben Schachter also forsees the DSi early adopters will largely be limited to those looking for something to replace their existing DS. "Limited" would be the operative word here, as he believes the DSi won't pack enough of a punch to generate much in the way of new sales, deeming the new features to be "minor changes" at most. In fact, Schachter warns the DSi could actually hurt Nintendo's bottom line depending on what the production costs for the new console are.