Trademark Gamers

Now that I have the pressure of making a phenomenal entrance to TmG relieved I can finally settle down into the slow progression of adding relatively quirky articles and features to this wonderful site. Again the dilemma of finding a suitable topic for an article, however – this time I’m in the swing of things, so it’s rather the opposite, finding an idea that is vibrant enough to squeeze into this little box that my features call “home”, rather than glaring into my near-empty screen imploring my subconscious to throw something of value into my lacklustre mind, anyhow – moving on.

The DSi is making its rather ungraceful entrance into the European community on the 3rd of April, with the North Americans being given the honour of accepting it a few days later. I hadn’t heard about this new update of the DS until recently, which makes me wonder if this could be a giant flop (excuse the pun) for Nintendo. The release of this “update” is almost secretive, considering it’s less than two months away before its release, there are no advertisements about it, and as the retail price is suspected to be the equivalent of £150 in Europe (which is a 50% increase on the current models price) you would assume Nintendo could be slightly less naive as to believe their product would become a hit through word of mouth.

In a nutshell, there’s nothing that’s going to be in the new chapter of the DS’s painfully long saga that’s going to blow your socks off, it’s pretty much what people have been expecting from the console all along, the typical case of a company launching a product that isn’t completely completed, then fooling the followers into believing its actually an “upgrade” when they fix them.

The new features the DSi offers are as follows:
·    12% Thinner than a DS Lite
·    Improved Volume
·    Improved Sound Quality
·    18% Larger Area (Per screen)
·    A WHOPPING 0.3 Megapixel Camera
·    Audio Player
·    11 Individual Camera Lenses
·    SD Memory Card Slot

Pretty jaw-dropping stuff I know. The downside to all of these upgrades is that the much beloved Game-Boy Advance compatible feature is gone with this console, which is also hidden quite subtly within the description that Nintendo give of its product on the site. Meaning we can’t play such gems as Pokémon Ruby or The Urbz: Sims in the city – which I’m sure will disappoint many fans.

This is the third complete revamp of the console, as well as it being re-publicised by being made available to the masses (mainly women) by added various different colours, which didn’t exactly go to plan. The whole concept of continuously changing a console that really doesn’t need anything else added to it is making me cringe slightly; it’s almost stuffing too much stuff into the DS’s seemingly ever-shrinking body – imagine instead of using your aunties famous onion stuffing to fill your Christmas turkey, you use the corpse of a wild bear.

I feel Nintendo are trying to exhume a persona that doesn’t fit their previous aspirations and achievements. I’ve always deemed them as being pro “gaming”, gearing people towards the nitty-gritty button pressing platform games that they’ve become renowned for such as Zelda and Mario. However, changes like this seem to be coming ever-more of an occurrence and this worries me that one of my childhood/current (the difference between these two is around 2 years) gaming “heroes” are straying off the track that made them such key figures in the scene.

                                        Nintendo's original "cashcow" the DS

I feel this is a rather silly move for Nintendo to make; they have put out a console that could be argued as simply being a test-run for future, more innovative consoles. However, as it is being launched during perhaps the biggest slump of the world’s economy, I can’t see many people re-purchasing a console just to be able to fiddle with a child-like version of Dance eJay and to be able to take a photo of themselves on a .2 megapixel camera and edit the image so that it looks like the people are behind frosted glass. Riveting stuff I’m sure.

Economic depression is kicking in, Nintendo have simply found the cheapest way of harvesting old materials to give their current livelihood a bit longer in the gaming scene before they have to revamp the GameCube or actually bring out a playable game for the Wii. The graphics have never been the prime-point in Nintendo’s chokehold on the scene which is profitable for them as they don’t have to fork out for such demanding hardware, but I feel they’re starting to get overtaken by consoles such as the PSP, and with their latest addition in the form of the DS I don’t believe they’re attempting to fix this key issue.

                           The new DSi, a "vast improvement" on the original.

I understand Nintendo’s concept though, they’re simply trying to broaden the horizons of their console, by adding knick-knacks which will enable game developers to dribble over the cash they can earn from mildly bored housewives looking for something to do before the Wii Fit morning yoga session and daily brain training escapade, and this is what they’re trying to offer - ingenuity. Which I feel to an extent can only be sought as a good though, however there are limits, and I feel with each additional entrepreneurial advance, Nintendo are slowly creeping over said limits.

This isn’t really a review, as to produce a review on something I must own the item of which I am going to review, which is currently physically impossible. And I may be slightly biased due to the fact my current DS is on eBay for a ludicrously low amount due to the sheer plethora of awful times I’ve spent wasting away on it. The only real good thing I can say about the DS is if you get an R4 cartridge then it may just about scrape being value for money, even then it’s fairly long winded swapping games on and off the cartridge. Cooking mama’s an okay game I suppose, although “Mama” isn’t as enticing as Nigella Lawson.

Photos courtesy of Nintendo.co.uk