DSiWare: Pricing, browser, promotion revealed
The DSi lets you record and edit audio.
(Credit: Nintendo)Two weeks ago, we gave you an exclusive hands-on First Look at the Nintendo DSi, the company's second refresh of the DS portable gaming system. While we had to hold back some juicy details about the DSi, we can now let you in on all the fun.
The DSi Shop, which will go live April 5, will offer downloadable games and applications via the DSi Shop that you can store on either the 256MB of internal storage or on an SD card. When Nintendo visited us a few weeks ago, we got to play some DSiWare titles like WarioWare Snapped!, a collection of mini-games designed for use with the DSi's cameras. Snapped! had us moving our heads to dodge objects and watched our mouth's movements to re-enact eating a sandwich. We imagine there will be dozens of more titles that make use of the unit's cameras in addition to the microphone capabilities.
We also got to see a title called Moving Memo that lets you create a sort of flipbook animation. There have even been rumors about a Virtual Console for Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games on the DSi Shop (which would explain the absence of such games on the current Wii Virtual Console).
Games and applications on the DSi Shop will range in price from free to more than 2,000 points. 100 points will equal $1, so a 1,000-point game will run you $10. As a promotion, anyone who buys a DSi before October 5 of this year will get 1,000 free points to spend in the DSi Shop.
While a list of games and applications hasn't been finalized yet, you will be able to grab a free Web browser for your DSi right out of the gate. The Opera-developed software is reportedly more robust, offering a better experience over the cartridge-based software we saw in the past. We'll update this post with a list of launch DSiWare titles when Nintendo confirms them.
The Nintendo DSi will cost $170, and is available in either black or blue. Check CNET next week for our full review!
Before covering games and gear for CNET Reviews, Jeff Bakalar dabbled in film and video production. An avid writer, reader, and gamer, Jeff is also an obsessive New Jersey Devils hockey fan. Catch him live every day as the co-host of CNET's infamous podcast, The 404. 
its still crap that plays stupid childish games and just collects dust
the dsi isnt even compatable with ur existing gb or gba games anymore, nintendo justs wants you to RE-buy them through the online store
nintendo makes stupid consoles anyway, i mean everyone has the wii now right?... but yet no one plays it. i have a wii and a nintendo ds lite, i havent played my wii in 6 months and my wii in like 2 years
my true love is the 360
but if you want a real portable video game system then get a psp
for even more fun hack ur psp =]
You have fair points, you just need to tone down the language a tad to be taken seriously, or risk being treated just as you did the DS.
It will take a lot of effort, and a long time before the DS, or the DSi manage to be better than Sony's PSP.
The PSP has an impressive array of (good) games, rather than the DS's limited (and mostly arcade-like) library.
It has taken the DS many years to sprout real firmware, a camera or internet access, where the PSP has been using 2 of 3 since it's original release.
A DS may be cheaper, and smaller, but it will never have the performance, games, multi-media, or general ability of the PSP...
As for the DS vs DSi argument, who buys a portable gaming console so they can edit audio tracks (in AAC?) and fiddle with 0.3 megapixel photos?
I think that Nintendo NEEDS to basically support playing back of all Game ROMS that pirates have been and still are trading "illegally" on the Internet. The way Nintendo should simply play those ROMS files is basically charge a very reasonable price for it. The SAME price as if people download any of the games through the DSi Shop.
I think the prices should generally be $1 per day for games that are newer than 5 years old and $0.50 per day for older games (NES, GB, GBA, SNES, N64...) and where the user would need to keep paying each day until the game purchase price has been reached. Game purchase price may start at $1 or even free for certain old and crappy games. And may have an average owning price of $5, and $10 for newer games and $20 for very new DS games. So basically once reached purchase limit, the player should be able to play the games as much as they want for free cause they own them from there.
If Nintendo was to do this for the DSi, not only will it totally revolutionize the way the video games industry functions, it will bring billions and billions of dollars of extra revenue to Nintendo, it will basically make Piracy meaningless cause who cares to pirate games if you can play them legally for $0.50 or $1 per day up until "owning price per game". Of these prices Nintendo takes 100% of the money, to share with third party game publishers, instead of first having to share the revenue with distributors and retailers. Distributors and retailers can simply from now on sell Wii Point cards and they can provide WiFi game downloading stations in stores and everywhere, including the fast and cheap download service of games to SD cards.
Nintendo could do exactly the same thing for the Wii using the Wii Storage, Nintendo should support USB hard drives for storage on the Wii as well.
If Nintendo does that, then it would be totally fine if the DSi has a firmware that blocks "illegal" Flash cards and other attempts at hacking the systems to play game copies "illegally".
u can play all the old ROMs on a hacked psp
Though my suggestion is that Nintendo simply play them officially for a very small and reasonable game-per-day price. Nintendo could even provide some kind of unlimited access subscription for like $20 for unlimited access to all Nintendo games ever made, I am sure lots of people would signup for that. The unlimited acces may or may not provide access to the newest games which could cost some extra fee for each day each game is used.
Yeah I mean seriously. If it weren't for Nintendo, gaming would be nothing like it is in the first place. Nintendo made gaming mainstream, and portable with the GameBoy and its iterations. Face it, Nintendo wouldn't be around if they made stupid consoles and whatnot, they're around and they still will be.
- by iPear April 10, 2009 10:31 PM PDT
- while the software for the DS may not be up to par with it's competitor. It's past and current titles are much better, in my opinion at least. I'm pretty excited about the possibility of game boy advance/game boy color games being available for download via a DS virtual console. I think being able to store them on an SD card is especially convenient because instead of having to use obnoxious looking GBA cartridges that stick out so predominantly like they did in the DS lite/original DS, they can be accessed through a little memory stick hidden inside the system.
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