DSi To Supplement Nintendo DS In The US

Unlike Japan, Nintendo has not invaded the entire home consumer market here in the United States. This leads them to believe there is room for both the DS and the DSi here in the United States. The DS will no doubt be a cheaper alternative to the DSi and the DSi isn’t going to make its way to the US for some time now (well into 2009 we hear).

Right now we’re still working through what the strategy’s going to be here. But we think that there’s huge untapped potential for the DS Lite. Because when you’ve got only one in every five households in the U.S., compared to one in every two in Japan, it says there’s potential.

You’ve seen some of the work we’ve done this year with celebrities, that we’re bringing a lot of new consumers in to the DS. So I think there’s opportunity for both of them to coexist for some period of time. (kotaku)

We all though the DS was taking over the market, apparently it’s going a long way to go. Nintendo probably feels the DSi may take some of the market share for the original hand held so they’re going to keep them both in the market, initially. No doubt, the DSi will eventually out-live the DS over time, but there is no reason to take the DS out of the US market until the market dominance dies off.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Post

Episode 617: Steam DeckedEpisode 617: Steam Decked

The Steam Deck has been released, and TJ and Scott are just excited about it. They’re able to play indie games on a Switch-like device even though many of the same games on the Switch. Jonah already has Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and therefore already plays games with a controller on his cellphone.

This week’s news includes:

  • Some Steam Deck preorders won’t ship until September 2022
  • PES is dead, replaced by the F2P ‘football platform’ eFootball
  • Humankind dev pulls controversial Denuvo DRM from game before launch
  • Xbox Game Pass is about to have an unbelievably good month

Let us know what you think on our Facebook page.

Nintendo DSi – New Features, Same LookNintendo DSi – New Features, Same Look

Nintendo finally came out and announced the Nintendo DS redesign, called the DSi. This product will have an SD memory slot, a 3.25 inch screen (bigger than the last) and a 3 megapixel camera.  The DSi is 12% smaller than the DS Lite and will have a matted gray and regular white finish; no colors upon launch it seems.

Conveniently the DSi has an SD slot for saving photos from the 3 megapixel camera so that you can transfer them to the Wii and use their Photo Channel. The Wii already has an SD card slot so now both devices can work together via the sneaker net.

The DS redesign looks much like the typical DS in looks and layout, a bit sad in my opinion. I was hoping for something a bit more “sexy” and awesome – the Apple way of doing things. Alas, nobody has a design team like Apple so we’ve got what we’ve got and that’s the DSi.

How did the alter the networking? They’ve created a store system much like that of the Wii and will be renaming Wii Points to Nintendo Points to show its more generic versitile nature to the new DSi hardware. You’ll be able to download games to an SD card making the portable device more acceptable to storage size increases, unlike the standard DS hardware.

Nintendo never really mentioned the MP3 concept, using the “audio” more for crazy reasons such as slowing down the speed or increasing it, which may suggest it as another tool for language learning tools.

Any takers? SD card slot is a nice addition and a little more integration with downloadable content would be well accepted by all communities and cultures.

(Thanks, 1up; Image via Kotaku)

VGRT Gaming Podcast 217: Pre-E3 ShowVGRT Gaming Podcast 217: Pre-E3 Show

The TD Gaming Podcast and Videogame Roundtable merge, as Jonah Falcon introduces VGRT regular Jordan Lund to his new listeners, as the VGRT Gaming Podcast is born.

The podcast is a little rushed, however, as E3 approaches, giving the duo only some time to discuss the eventful past week, which includes the following news:

For this podcast, this Question of the Week is, “What game do you want to learn about the most at E3” Of course, by the time the next podcast is launched, that question will probably be satisfied. As for Reader Feedback, we didn’t have time to answer it, but we will respond to it next week!