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Nintendo DSi Launches on April 4th in North America

AuDioFreaK39

AuDioFreaK39

Senior member
Nintendo DSi Launches on April 4th in North America

for $179.99


Multiple unnamed sources close to Nintendo have told IGN that the company's anticipated DS successor will have an early Q2 launch in North America. More specifically, the company told its distributors to expect the new product to ship out on April 4th.




No Self Promotion allowed


esquared
Anandtech Senior Moderator
 
Originally posted by: purbeast0
actually that's $50 more than the current DS Lite pricepoint...
Click to expand...

And $29.99 more than what the original DS debuted at 4 years ago.

How much you think it costs to manufacture a DS? I remember an article stating that at launch, it only cost Nintendo $158 to make a Wii. Microsoft and Sony take losses on selling hardware but Nintendo takes cheap tech and just shines it up real nice so that people pay extravagant prices for them. Nintendo is truly the Apple of the gaming industry.
 
Originally posted by: AuDioFreaK39
Originally posted by: blurredvision
Why does both the title and article say "cheaper"?
Click to expand...

yeah XD I just realized that. *fixed*
Click to expand...

Your title is still wrong 🙂.

As for the DSi at $180, I feel that it's overly expensive. Mark my words, people will continue to buy the DS Lite and will shun the DSi. I feel that Nintendo might trip up on this one unless they do something with their prices fairly quickly. We'll see I guess.
 
I'd rather have the regular DS Lite if I had any use for a portable, especially at $50 cheaper.

You have to wonder if Nintendo is starting to have the same arrogance Sony had after the success of the PS2.

Next they'll be saying kids can just work a second job to pay for the extra $50 🙂
 
Originally posted by: Dumac
What are the new features again? A camera, wiishop, and a loss of the GBA slot?
Click to expand...

That's about it. Oh, and the screens are a tad bit bigger and brighter. The DSi is showing a propensity towards moving to a downloadable game model, which I think is a fantastic idea for handhelds. The DSi puts things into motion for it. I'll just wait for the next full release of a new handheld to jump on that bandwagon.
 
While the downloadable game aspect sounds nice, I don't like losing the rumble pack/GBA slot. The reason I bought the DS was for the backward compatibility, so I don't see any benefit for me to "upgrade" here.
 
Originally posted by: blurredvision
Originally posted by: AuDioFreaK39
Originally posted by: blurredvision
Why does both the title and article say "cheaper"?
Click to expand...

yeah XD I just realized that. *fixed*
Click to expand...

Your title is still wrong 🙂.

As for the DSi at $180, I feel that it's overly expensive. Mark my words, people will continue to buy the DS Lite and will shun the DSi. I feel that Nintendo might trip up on this one unless they do something with their prices fairly quickly. We'll see I guess.
Click to expand...

While, I feel it is too expensive as well and don't see any point in upgrading just for a cheap camera, this thing is the top seller in Japan right now. Never doubt the need to have the latest and greatest....
 
Originally posted by: Queasy
Originally posted by: blurredvision
Originally posted by: AuDioFreaK39
Originally posted by: blurredvision
Why does both the title and article say "cheaper"?
Click to expand...

yeah XD I just realized that. *fixed*
Click to expand...

Your title is still wrong 🙂.

As for the DSi at $180, I feel that it's overly expensive. Mark my words, people will continue to buy the DS Lite and will shun the DSi. I feel that Nintendo might trip up on this one unless they do something with their prices fairly quickly. We'll see I guess.
Click to expand...

While, I feel it is too expensive as well and don't see any point in upgrading just for a cheap camera, this thing is the top seller in Japan right now. Never doubt the need to have the latest and greatest....
Click to expand...

I just can't get past the almost 40% price increase for what is basically the same piece of hardware. The DSi is an incremental upgrade in my eyes, and $180 seems outrageous to be buying 4 year old tech with a couple of cheap cameras added to it. What if the PSP did the same type of upgrades/downgrades and charged $235 for it?

I'm not trying to argue with you Queasy, I'm just throwing questions out there 😉.
 
Originally posted by: blurredvision
Originally posted by: Queasy
Originally posted by: blurredvision
Originally posted by: AuDioFreaK39
Originally posted by: blurredvision
Why does both the title and article say "cheaper"?
Click to expand...

yeah XD I just realized that. *fixed*
Click to expand...

Your title is still wrong 🙂.

As for the DSi at $180, I feel that it's overly expensive. Mark my words, people will continue to buy the DS Lite and will shun the DSi. I feel that Nintendo might trip up on this one unless they do something with their prices fairly quickly. We'll see I guess.
Click to expand...

While, I feel it is too expensive as well and don't see any point in upgrading just for a cheap camera, this thing is the top seller in Japan right now. Never doubt the need to have the latest and greatest....
Click to expand...

I just can't get past the almost 40% price increase for what is basically the same piece of hardware. The DSi is an incremental upgrade in my eyes, and $180 seems outrageous to be buying 4 year old tech with a couple of cheap cameras added to it. What if the PSP did the same type of upgrades/downgrades and charged $235 for it?

I'm not trying to argue with you Queasy, I'm just throwing questions out there 😉.
Click to expand...

Hehe. I know, I'm baffled as well. I thought for sure that it wouldn't do as well when it was released in Japan because, as you said, it is an incremental upgrade at best. But it is selling something like 180,00+ units a week in Japan. 😕

I wonder if it will meet similar success in N. America especially with the economy the way it is now.
 
I'm curious to see what the homebrew scene will wind up doing with this thing, and I'll probably hold off on buying one at least until people at least figure out how to access the (hopefully, more-powerful) DSi bits.

I do tend to agree that this is a rather disappointing upgrade, regardless of the way it's selling in Japan. I have much higher hopes for a PSP2...
 
Originally posted by: Queasy
Hehe. I know, I'm baffled as well. I thought for sure that it wouldn't do as well when it was released in Japan because, as you said, it is an incremental upgrade at best. But it is selling something like 180,00+ units a week in Japan. 😕

I wonder if it will meet similar success in N. America especially with the economy the way it is now.
Click to expand...

I simply cannot imagine it will sell gangbusters here initially. There won't be hardly any games that will take advantage of the cameras initially, and I'm guessing a lot of people might be pissed when they decide to upgrade and find out their GBA carts won't work anymore. However, with the GBA being so long gone, I'm not sure new customers to the DSi will care about GBA back-compat.

EDIT: I should add that I'll most likely be proven wrong 🙂. I just don't see people opting for the $50-more-expensive DS when the DS Lite is sitting there beside it and basically does the same thing. Any games released that use the camera will have to also work without the camera, otherwise you're segmenting the market.
 
yeah im not to impressed with it. I LOVE my DS. but i still play GBA games (wich is one of the reasons i got the ds).

 
Originally posted by: reallyscrued
How much you think it costs to manufacture a DS? I remember an article stating that at launch, it only cost Nintendo $158 to make a Wii.
Click to expand...

Really? Queasy posted an article like 2 weeks ago saying that Nintendo was only making $7 on every Wii sold.
 
Originally posted by: kabob983
Originally posted by: reallyscrued
How much you think it costs to manufacture a DS? I remember an article stating that at launch, it only cost Nintendo $158 to make a Wii.
Click to expand...

Really? Queasy posted an article like 2 weeks ago saying that Nintendo was only making $7 on every Wii sold.
Click to expand...

I highly doubt it costs Nintendo $85 to market and ship and provide support for one Wii. Somebody is wrong here.
 
Originally posted by: krnmastersgt
Maybe they'll use it as an excuse to launch an accessory for GBA games -> DS cartridge? 😕
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Or maybe one of the reasons they pulled support for GBA games is so they can offer them in the "DSi Shop" as downloads? Kinda how the Wii does this for NES, SNES, N64 ect,....
 
so what, specifically, are the new additions to the DSi?

are people still buying the Ds Lite now? or shall we just wait for the DSi?
 
Originally posted by: waggy
yeah im not to impressed with it. I LOVE my DS. but i still play GBA games (wich is one of the reasons i got the ds).
Click to expand...

Same here. I guess GH wont work with the DSi now as it has no port for the guitar controller.
 
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