Nintendo DSi Review

The Nintendo DS was first revealed in 2003 and appeared in North America in 2004 whilst Europe had to wait until 2005 before Nintendo saw fit to let the Old World dwellers gain access to the lump of silver coloured plastic the console was in those days. The arrival of the machine brought with it a signifncant amount of sceptisum and not many were convinced that it would do much to replace the Game Boy Advanced. Fast forward 5 years and things couldn’t be better for the machine. Now all three of the major territories have the Nintendo DSi, the third iteration of the console that has taken the gaming world by storm. So the question is; is it worth upgrading from the DS Lite? Quite possibly, and no this isn’t being written by someone with buyers remorse, I can assure you of that. The main reason behind my reasoning lies in a single yet rather potent and often miss-used word: Potential.

What struck me first when I enountered the DSi is the rough matte finish the machine has. Gone is the finger print lingering gloss from the DS Lite only to be replaced with this scratch prone finish which is a little odd to the touch. Other differences are the two 0.3 megapixel cameras and the lack of GBA port in the bottom of the console. This means add-ons such as the rumble pack and the Guitar Hero controller will not work with this version of the DS. I suspect this annoys the execs within Activision but considering the install base of the DS they should have little to fear. Other changes include the relocation of the power slider to a button on the lower left hand side of the touch screen and the volume slider has been moved to the left hand side of the console and turned into a rocker button. Where the power slider used to be is now an SD Card slot. This is a very important change to the DS format and one I will expand on later in this review.

Under the hood of the DSi things get really quite interesting. The CPU is an ARM processor, similar to the original DS only this time its running at 133 Mhz as opposed to 67 Mhz. The ram has been increased to 16 Mb, up from 4Mb in the previous iterations of the machine. There is also internal flash memory unit with a 256 Mb limit and an updated WiFi capability to bring it up to date with current security encryption such as WPA2. The screens are also slightly larger and brighter with a size of 3.25 inches as opposed to the originals 3 inches. A small increase I grant you but it is noticable. The SD Card slot provides additional storage space for pictures, AAC sound files and applications downloaded from the DSi Shop. It is this last addition that has interested me the most as it opens up a new world of downloadable content hithertoo the preserve of Sony’s PSP, the iPhone and Nokia’s N-Gage. It is clear to me that this is Nintendo’s answer to Sony’s, Nokia’s and indeed Apple’s attempts at muscling in on the hand held space Nintendo have lorded over since the release of the GameBoy in 1989.

When starting up the DSi for the first time I was asked a series of questions such as online handle, birthday, favourite colour and, most interestingly of all, means by which I wished to connect the DSi to the Internet. The DSi is very much built around the online experience and it encourages you to connect the machine to the Internet as soon as possible. Yes you can use the machine offline but getting it online opens up a library of games you won’t find on store shelves. for me this is the most appealing aspect of the machine, far more than the sound and image creation/manipulation software that has been spoken of and raised in profile by Nintendo themselves. Granted I will be exploring these aspects of the DSi in this review, but indulge me for a moment as I expand on the DSi and what it has to offer as well as what it will provide in the future.

When I first put my DSi online I was greeted with a series of options that did allow me to connect the machine via my highly secured WiFi. A WPA2 encrypted network I don’t even advertise the SSID, which I know is a tad paranoid but it makes me feel better. Up until now I’ve had to use Nintendo’s WiFi USB device to act as a bridge connection which works fine but does require a PC to be on whilst I use my DS online. Thankfully the DSi could bypass this and go straight to the router, but sadly I learnt that this only works for the DSi’s built in OS and later games for the machine. Older titles will not support WPA2, so those hoping to do away with their Nintendo WiFi USB dongle will have their dreams dashed as they must hang on to it if they wish to continue to play Mario Kart DS online.

As I popped online I linked my DSi to my Club Nintendo account at which point I was granted 1000 DSi points for free. These points can be to used to buy applications and games found on the DSi Shop in a very similar way to the Wii Shop found on the DSi’s much bigger brother. It’s so similar in fact that Wii users that have used the Wii Store, as I have, frequently will be very much at home with the DSi Store. The menu is almost exactly the same, with the major difference being the download animation being Nintendo characters filling a bucket of water as opposed to Mario jumping under blocks.

When buying software from the DSi Shop the applications and games are split into categories such as recent, popular etc. They are also split based on price which range from 200 DSi points to ‘Premium’, the latter of which is not available at the launch of the DSi. Both Europe and the US have slightly different rosters of titles available at present so I shall only discuss what is commonly available to both territories for the purpose of this review. First off we have the web browser that is a free download. This is the same Opera based browser that was released for the DS previously only no RAM expansion is required thanks to the DSi’s increased RAM capacity. Whilst free it is also quite poor. It is slow and difficult to use. Sony, Apple and other smart phone vendors have little to fear from the DSi on this front. This also applies to the cameras, but I’ll discuss that later.

As to the games there are two 200 DSi point titles that are mildly diverting. Paper Plane has the player controlling a constantly falling paper plane (the clue is in the title) that can only be guided by the D-pad. It can be played in 2-5 minute bursts, perfect for those shot bus hops or quick changes on the London Underground. The other title I tried was Pyoro. This is an odd little game that has the player controlling a little bird that happens to have a very long tongue. The aim of the game is to collect fruit from the sky. The further away the fruit that is grabbed, the higher the score. If the player misses the fruit a section of the floor Pyoro is standing on falls away, restricting his movement to a smaller section. The game ends when one of the falling fruits hits Pyoro on the head. The game reminded me of the old Game and Watch titles Nintendo made back in the early 80’s and is again a pleasant 3-5 minute diversion, but nothing more.

I also tried the Warioware: Snapped! game that was on offer at the DSi Shop. Costing 500 DSi points this title has a little more to offer. Like every other Warioware game that has appeared, its aim is to make a bit of a fool of the player. It makes a significant use of the inward facing camera and has the player moving about as they attempt to swat flies, wear falling hats and punch themselves repeatedly in the face. OK I lied about the last one but I was waiting for the game to ask me to do such a thing. It’s somewhat like Sony’s Eye Toy only in compact form. It’s also not very mobile as doing these actions on public transport will likely get you arrested.

So that’s the online store, what about the cameras and the sound editing? Well the sound editing appears to have fallen out of the same brain as the person who came up with Wii Music. It’s a pointless application that allows the user to record sounds then manipulate them by adding an echo, changing it to a buzzer and so on. You’re much better off playing with the Korg DS-10 than this thing quite frankly.

The cameras can be used in conjuntion with an image editor to create pictures that can be saved to an SD Card. The image above is of me that has been altered to such an extent that my face has pretty much been obliterated. Again this sort of thing exists on smart phones such as the iPhone and Nokia N96 for some time and there is nothing new here. Whilst it’s diverting for a moment or two to mess around with captured images via the stylus, it doesn’t hold one’s interest for long. The image manipulator strikes me as little more than a tech demo for developers to view as a means to inspire them, more so than a fun gadget for the end user. This may be a hint of the Jaded Gamer affecting me however, who knows?

The DSi is not what many were expecting when it appeared late last year. The cameras and the removal of the GBA slot confused many and the addition of the SD Card raised yet more questions. But there is more to the unit than these additions. The cameras are there to alter DS games by including camera support. How developers will exploit this is anybodies guess but something will come of it. The closest I have seen is the camera control used in Metal Gear Solid Mobile on the N-Gage so maybe we’ll see something similar for the DSi, who knows?

But what really peaks my interest is the DSi Shop and its interaction with the SD Card. I hope that DSi Ware will be a portal for games developers who lack the funds to get their games distributed in the traditional way. Non-traditional titles that all too often will get swept away by the Brain Trainings me-too titles that plague the DS will find a permanent home on the DSi Ware platform. We may even see the likes of World of Goo there if we’re lucky. In fact that title would be perfect for the platform if you think about it!

So yes the DSi could be regarded as a very small increment to the DS, but for the reasons given above I believe it has the potential to become a potent force on the digital distribution of hand-held games. So if you want to support independent games and their development, you’d do well to take a long hard look at the DSi. For it indeed does have potential.