In a recent press conference, Nintendo confirmed the rumors of the new Nintendo DSi, along with plans to price it at a low $179. They have intentions of releasing it as early as November 1st in Japan (it is implied that it will make it to the U.S. just as early, and debut in Europe Spring 2009).
My favorite announced feature so far? A built-in web browser. Other features include a new online DSi Shop, a .3 mega pixel camera (seen on the hinge above), 12% thinner than existing models (as partially demonstrated above), 3.25 inch screen and “better audio capabilities.” Sadly, to facilitate this slimming down process, they will remove the Game Boy cartridge slot.
In additional news, Nintendo has been considering the lack of storage on the Wii for quite a while. How do they combat this? Sure, there is a model of Xbox 360 sold without a hard drive, but if you want it bad enough, you can buy a new hard drive and fix the problem yourself. No such option exists on the Wii. With the recent announcement of the Marriott In-Room Entertainment allows users to select multiple games without swapping discs – suggesting the storage problem was solved.
According to Kotaku, users will be able to save their downloads directly to an SD card, without having to make the stop on the console in the middle. It will only apply to content downloaded from the Wii Shop channel and other similiarly designed channels in the future, but it’s a step in the right direction. Keep in mind, however, that the biggest downloaders still may have to swap out their CD-Cards, as the console is not officially compatible with SDCards over 2 GB.
