Nintendo is showing no mercy to those who picked up a DSi since it was released in April and announcing that gamers will have to pick up the new, redesigned DSi LL if they want to stay cutting-edge.
The new handheld gaming device boasts a larger screen than the DSi and longer battery life. It’s also bigger and heavier than the DSi, and Nintendo is slapping loyal customers in the face by not allowing them to transfer games they’ve downloaded on the DSi to the DSi LL.
The DSi LL bucks the trend of Nintendo’s numerous redesigns, which have made the device smaller and thinner. This pocket-unfriendly DSi could backfire, but hey, when you’ve sold 113 million of something, you know what you’re doing.
The doodad is coming out Nov. 10 in Japan and in the first three months of 2010 in Europe. There’s no release date yet for the U.S., but it will definitely come out here and you or someone you know will buy one.
Nintendo officially reveals the DSi LL [Destructoid]
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“Nintendo is slapping loyal customers in the face by not allowing them to transfer games they’ve downloaded on the DSi to the DSi LL.”
And those of us that shun devices that force consumers to buy licenses instead of owning physical media look on and laugh as what we predicted comes true.
@Radi0logy: Yup, true. Whenever I buy any DLC on Xbox Live, I buy it with the understanding that it’s not going to be mine forever, and I adjust what I’m willing to pay accordingly.
@AirIntake: Agreed, though wondrous will be the day when I can exercise my right of first-sale for my DLC and other electro-licenses.
@Radi0logy: What’s the difference between a license and physical media in this case? I mean I still have a gameboy but I’m fairly sure I can’t stick the Tetris cartridge in a Wii and play on it. License or not, usually a new handheld game version requires new physical media as well. Before PS and Xbox came along, and ran off cd/dvd discs, game cartridges changed with every new system. Unless all manufacturers would like to use SD cards or something, there isn’t a single medium that fits into every system.
Umm I think you guys missed the point of this DS.
Its not meant to those people who bought the DSi, its meant for OLDER PEOPLE (ie 55+ range) who didnt buy a DS because they cant see the screen or its too small to grasp.
The DSI and DSI LL (LL meaning XL in Japanese) are the exact same thing, one is just bigger for older hands. The screen would actually look better on the DSi, since both have the same resolution anyway.
@Falcon5768: This is actually interesting to me because my husband never upgraded his original DS because they are too small for his banana hands. Maybe now he can finally get rid of that grey behemoth!
@LindsayC: doctoral hilarity ensues: part of the reason I held onto mine for so long till someone got me the DS lite, and Im only 28.
I appreciate the portability of the smaller one, but dislike holding it. The original DS was a lot more comfortable.
@Falcon5768: I just wish they would have added back GBA compatibility since they probably had room in this behemoth. I would buy it if they did.
@kalaratri: A-freaking-men. My black DS Lite (traded in my launch DS for it when it came out) is pretty beat up (used for years of NYC and DC subway commutes) and I would be willing to pay for a replacement, but I actually use the GBA slot. Its absence in the DSi makes me completely not want one.
The larger size would help me too, though. I have positively enormous hands — how many women can reach a 12th on the piano? — and have trouble with the smallness of the system sometimes.
@Etoiles: Shit, I can’t reach a 12th.
@Dondegroovily: I’m not sure I could reach a twelfth with two hands.
@floraposte: What, you can’t even reach a 6th?
@Etoiles: Me! Me! I can!
My friends tell me I have E.T. hands. heh.
@Etoiles: @kalaratri: Different board.
The DSi uses a different chipset thats backward compatible with the older DS but has no way of playing the GBA games. Same thing happened with the GBA too, once they switched to a different smaller chipset for the GBA it lost the ability to be backward compatible.
@kalaratri: That will be a feature on the ‘DSi LL+ (w/GBA)’. Scheduled for release Q4 of 2010.
Apparently this one is for older gamers who have not yet bought a DS at all (hence the larger screen). Nintendo is determined to ensure that EVERY HUMAN ALIVE purchases a DS and so they keep designing new ones for every niche possible until they succeed in their goal.
More power to them.
I believe up next is the DS Gma for grandparents, which comes preloaded with season one of Murder She Wrote.
@techstar25: lol +1
@techstar25: If all the features are the same, except for the size change, this is a brilliant move. Boomers are getting older and I’m sure that someone could run the numbers and find that large print versions are gaining share in the book market.
As for infecting the world, I’ve been pushing the wife to get one for herself for a while. She just keeps putting it off (although, a touch is becoming the object of choice).
@nbs2: I’d rather have a touch from my wife than a DS, too.
My tween has a DSi and he loves it. He doesn’t want the bigger one. We might get his grandma one for her birthday. She loves playing Bookworm on her DS Lite.
Hooray! A whole new rack and a half of DS accessories that are incompatible with my original DS fat.
@Applekid: I don’t even remember the last time I saw new accessories for my Nintendo handheld. Then again, it’s twenty years old.
The “view window” size is still the same, meaning that the screens will be stretched to accommodate worse eyesight. Its gonna look worse for people with good eyesight.
I don’t know why these upgrades and product refreshes upset people. No one, absolutely no one, is forcing anyone to buy Nintendo’s plastic crap.
The lack of transferability is the primary reason I never bought a Wii. I’d love a Wii for the WiiWare and Virtual Console, but not if my games are stuck on one console.
The DSi came out in Japan Nov first, so this is being released one year later. Phil implies that it’s been less than a year by using the US release date of April in the article.
Nintendo still sells the DS lite, along with the DSi. They are just segmenting their market to different demographics and price points. Does Phil get upset when Ford releases a redesigned car a year after he buys one?
And my DSi just came in the mail yesterday
Haha.
I’ll only buy a DSi if they make a Zelda edition like they did for the DS two years ago.
nintendo has been slapping customers in the face over handhelds for a long long time.
I swear to god, Nintendo comes out with a revolutionary device and then there is a ridiculous chain of evolutionary products after.
There was the DS, various color and special edition DS’s, the DS Lite, various color and special edition DS Lites, then the DSi, various color and special edition DSi’s, now the DS LL, and I’m sure various color and special edition DS LL’s. WTF? They all play the same games with minor improvements in functionality.
The Wii is the same way, there is the white Wii, the Black Wii, various other color special editions, and the gyro add-on for the controller. It’s the exact same guts but in new cases and people LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE to trade their old one in for a new one that does the same thing.
@The Cheat:
Actually, they do not all play the same games. They all play DS games. But the older ones play GBA games as well.
@drizzt380: At this point in the video game food chain, I don’t think many people bemoan the loss of GBA games but I see your point.
@drizzt380: If you have GBA games, then you have a GBA. just play those games in the GBA and the DS games in the DS. Problem solved, no big deal
@The Cheat: Not always. My son purchased a DS Lite last year for his 7th birthday with giftcards he received for his birthday (mom & dad didn’t want to buy it because we weren’t sure that he would be responsible enough with it to take care of it…his friends are on their 3rd DS that their parents bought them. Thankfully he is taking care of his DS, as it only has some cosmetic scuff marks on the bottom, and we have only bent one stylus.).
He has no interest in a DSi because he sees no advantage to it other than the Camera so he can communicate with his friend standing next to him (at least I think it has a camera…I just can’t keep up with all of these new fangled gizmos…damn, I am turning into my parents).
If this brings the DSi price down I will be thrilled.
I’m not holding my breath though.
This is typical Nintendo, as soon as a product cools, come out with a revision of a current product; Be it be a different color or slight cosmetic change. If the marketing team for Nintendo wasn’t so darn good!
The gadget world will implode if Apple and Nintendo ever got together.
I am just really glad that the now old DS Lite plays the same games, if they didn’t play the same games and Nintendo started releasing new DS Lite incompatible games then I would start to get angry. Or if Nintendo made a new system every year with new games only to be played on that system, not compatible with other systems.
There is only 1-2 DSi only games releasing that I know of and I doubt they are going to be worth the purchase of a $170 system so I don’t think I have much to worry about now. Its not like there is a massive wave of them, and even if there was it would take many must have titles to purchase the new system. The DS library is so huge that I think I would have enough games to play anyways.
@Outrun1986: the only game that would have been a DSi Seller would have been the “new” re-release of pokemon heart gold and soul silver. thankfully they are just standard DS games
@SteveZim1017: Yeah, if they were DSi only I probably would stop buying Nintendo products altogether because I would be really mad. Although I don’t think they could make them DSi only because the games do include Pal Park, which requires the GBA slot. Making them without this feature and making them DSi only would really mean that Nintendo is abandoning its fans. I don’t think Mario games sell as well as Pokemon games, Pokemon games are still a cash cow for Nintendo.
At least you guys aren’t like Kotaku…
“OMGZ, NEW DSI?! IT’S TEH SUCK, PSP IS SO MUCH BETTER SINCE I TRADED MAH OLD ONE FOR A PSPS GO”