It’s official. Nintendo’s newest redesign of the DS has been released in Japan. Small lines gathered to eagerly fork over some yen for the DSi, but other than that launch demand hasn’t been the frenzy that was expected. Kotaku reports many popular electronic stores having just a handful of customers lining up, or none at all.
Many financial analysts are questioning whether or not Nintendo got over they’re head. Is another DS model going too far? Nope. Give it a few weeks to circulate through the market, and it’ll soon take up the torch as Nintendo’s cash-cow standard.
Want your own imported Japanese DSi? Get ready to fork over some serious cash, because at the time of this writing all major importers have the DSi standard bundle locked in at $299 all the way up to a whooping $499 US Dollars. Pony up!
The Nintendo DS line of systems launched in November 2004, and has gone on to sell over 80 million units worldwide.
Seriously, someone expected a frenzy? Who?
Making a new model that doesn’t impress that much beyond the previous? That sounds like getting over their head to me. Much like all these PSPs revisions which really offer much of nothing different.
I want 1
Oversaturation of the market coupled with a fairly blase reinvention of the DS along with the hysteria of Monster Hunter (and thus the PSP) equates to meh in Japan, imho.
I’m sorry, but with Nintendo’s penchant for including inferior electronics (AAC and not mp3, 0.3 mb camera, crappy speakers) just can’t compete in a market where something like the iPhone exists.
This is no Virtual Boy, but the DSi does seem fairly pointless to me. Of course, I’ve already bought 2 DS’s, so why in the world would I want this third one with a crappier camera than my cell phone, ya know.
AAC is actually better than mp3 at the same bitrate, just less useful because most people have hard disks full of mp3 files, not AAC files. What it means to me is that the DSi will be useless to me as a media player until it’s hacked for homebrew.
As of now, I have no intention of buying the DSi when it releases in the US, but naturally, that could change if they produce some compelling software that makes use of the cameras or it proves to have a “DSi mode” with twice the power of the DS, like the Wii vs. the Gamecube.
You guys have the wrong stories:
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20081101p2a00m0na011000c.html
http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Tech%2Band%2BScience/Story/STIStory_297292.html
There were no lines the night before because all stores had already sold all of their pre-orders. In the morning, there were lines of 400 people waiting to pick up their DSi’s.
The initial sell out is 200k, with another 100k expected for the following week. Demand is very high.
Remember, 3.6% interest in buying the DSi equates to 2M people in Japan wanting one.
DonWii is right, Jake: the DSi is selling plenty already!
Everyone else: to call the DSi a “failure” would be calling every handheld AND console but the DS Lite a failure, since it is already selling better than everything else.
I, of course, still think the PSP would be a better investment at that price… but Japan has spoken, and the DSi looks like another winner!