The new metallic blue DSi with five titles.
(Credit: Nintendo)Starting on Black Friday, Nintendo will offer two new DSi bundles featuring metallic blue or white Nintendo DSi systems, plus more than $20 in DSiWare games, the company announced on Monday.
The new bundles will come with different games, depending on the DSi customers buy. The metallic blue version of the DSi will come with five Mario DSiWare titles, including Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again; Dr. Mario Express; WarioWare: Snapped!; Mario Calculator; and Mario Clock.
Nintendo's white Nintendo DSi comes preinstalled with Brain Age Express: Arts & Letters; Brain Age Express: Sudoku; Brain Age Express: Math; Clubhouse Games Express: Card Classics; and Photo Clock.
Nintendo said the DSi bundles will be available as long as supplies last, though a company representative wouldn't divulge how many units will be shipped. Nintendo also pointed out that although the white DSi has been around for a while, the Metallic Blue color is new. So far, Nintendo hasn't responded to my inquiry about whether or not it will offer a Metallic Blue DSi as a standalone unit after the bundle runs out.
Both the White DSi bundle and the Metallic Blue offering will be available in stores on Friday for $169.99, the same price as the standalone DSi.
See also: Be prepared for Black Friday tech deals
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
Artist's rendering of the PSP Go!
(Credit: 1up.com)A report from 1Up.com says the new version of the PSP will be hitting store shelves later this year. It will be announced at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in June.
1Up.com also says the new PSP will be called the PSP Go! It's slated for a September release in Japan, followed by a U.S. launch in October or November. The publication said that the Go! will sport slide-out controls. Those who were hoping for dual analog sticks will be upset to hear that the new PSP will presumably still feature a single analog nub. 1Up believes that the Go! will come in two versions: one with 8GB of internal memory and another with 16GB of memory.
Shockingly, 1Up sources told the publication that Sony will be dumping the UMD drive for digital downloads. Players looking to add titles to their handheld will be able to do so by buying games from an online store.
Sony has not confirmed 1Up's report. And it's likely that the company won't be saying much as we get closer to E3. But if the 1Up report is true, is it enough to force Nintendo from its top spot in the hand-held gaming space?
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Is the Nintendo DSi worth your money?
(Credit: Nintendo)The Nintendo DSi arrived at my house last week. After playing a variety of games on the handheld, here are my thoughts:
Hands-on
Gaming
Based on the games I played--a dozen DS titles--I don't see any difference between it and the previous DS Lite. The games and the experience are the same. The DSi's screens are larger and the sound is better, slightly improving the gameplay experience, but other than that, I'm hard-pressed to see much difference.
DS games on the DSi shouldn't be much different, but Nintendo says compelling DSi-specific software is on the way. The company claims those titles will fully capture the functionality of the new handheld. I haven't played any of those titles, so I can't make a judgment on whether they will. Right now, the DSi, from a gaming perspective, is a new, hobbled, more expensive, DS Lite.
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Nope, this isn't the iPod killer. Sorry.
(Credit: Nintendo)Speculation abounds over Nintendo's intentions with its new DSi. Is it designed to compete with the iPod Touch, thanks to its music playback function? Is it taking aim at mobile phones with its two cameras?
The argument might be made that it is trying to compete with Apple's iPhone-like music player, which is increasingly being marketed to gamers. But Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata has a different take on that suggestion.
On the company's Nintendo DSi page over the weekend, Iwata expressed that the notion of Nintendo trying to compete with the iPod is ridiculous. In his "Iwata Asks" post on the site, he said the following:
Nintendo doesn't have any intention of directly competing with existing products, but the mass media has a tendency to portray everything as a rivalry between opposing companies. It seems (that) some people have the impression that we want to compete with cell phones or the iPod, that putting cameras or music players in our devices is out of character for us.
I hope those who have such an impression will take an interest in what Nintendo can make when it dedicates itself to pleasing as many people as possible who pick up a DS, and I hope they'll actually pick one up themselves.
But as much as Iwata and his team might try to disregard other game-friendly gadgets on the market, he explains that "it can be next to impossible with words alone to draw a distinction with previous products."
With two 0.3-megapixel cameras and a music player that can't compete on any level with the iPod, I don't think it's too difficult to agree with Iwata. But assuming that Nintendo truly doesn't want to compete with Apple or other media device manufacturers, why are those features there in the first place? Are they just extra add-ons that we probably won't care about?
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Nintendo DSi gets its name from the two cameras?
(Credit: Nintendo)A Nintendo of America representative told TechRadar earlier this week that Nintendo's latest entrant into the handheld gaming market, the DSi, has an 'i' attached to the end of its name because "the addition of two cameras gives the system its own "eye" on things." The representative also said it's symbolic of the personal "I."
Cryptic branding aside, are the two cameras really so compelling? I don't see it.
I realize that adding two cameras to the DSi means Nintendo can use that functionality to enhance games and prove that it too can expand the feature set of mobile devices, just like Sony has with the PSP, but I simply don't see how two cameras will somehow improve the experience of my DS.
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