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Nintendo Announces DS Lite
Conradq writes "Via Joystiq: 'Nintendo President Satoru Iwata today announced Nintendo DS Lite, a slimmer version of the best-selling Nintendo DS. Also featuring brighter screens, Nintendo DS Lite will launch in Japan on the 2nd of March. Nintendo DS Lite will be less than two-thirds the size of the original Nintendo DS and more than 20 percent lighter. Nintendo will announce more information about the availability of Nintendo DS Lite in North America and other territories in the future.'" Additional: by Z : Commentary available via Gamasutra, Next Generation, and The Game Chair. A good move, right on the heels of the news that Nintendo's profits more than doubled in Q3 as a result of the DS's sales success, and that they've hit 3 million online connections via their online component. Also, for the record, they snowed us earlier this month.
is this just an improved version that will replace the DS, or is there something missing?
It looks 3 times more sexy, I wonder if it still takes flash cartridges =P
:)
In that case I might get one real soon now
Considering that Nintendo just finished denying that there was no redesigned DS, this came as a surprise.
Perhaps that explains the DS shortages in Japan? Maybe Nintendo was busy manufacturing the new models?
Anyway, it's smaller, thinner, lighter, brighter, and only $10 more. What's not to like? I wonder how much I'll get on trade-in with my current DS...
I wonder if it still takes flash cartridges =P
Good point. I wonder how many security blocks Nintendo put on this thing. The newer DS's being sold have a newer firmware that blocks PassMe, but PassMe 2 gets around it (but requires some annoying setup to use). I'd bet the new one will block PassMe 2.
I'd trade 20% lighter in for 20% larger screens.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Yes, it will. The cart slot is still present and the ARM-7 processor used for GBA support can't be removed without breaking every single DS game.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
I recently bought a Nintendo DS to pass the time during a long bus ride (I'm terrible at sleeping on busses/planes) and I've utterly enjoyed almost everything about it. However, the experience of playing Mario 64 without an analog stick was awkward. Since the release of the DS, even in some of the initial reviews, it has been widely speculated that Nintendo would release an upgraded version in the future with an analog stick.
Now, we all know that Nintendo doesn't really listen to game pundits, but the addition of an analog stick, much like the addition of a backlit screen makes a whole lot of sense. I'll probably end up buying this upgrade anyway.
Does it strike anyone else as hypocritical that Nintendo refuses to release small upgrades to their first party games (releasing sequels to games that just add new levels instead of totally redesigning the game engine which would mean having a new Mario/Mario Kart game each year instead of one every 3-5 years) but they release tons of incremental upgrades to their portable systems?
(Big Grey GameBoy -> GameBoy Pocket -> GameBoy Color -> GameBoy Advance -> GameBoy Advance SP -> GameBoy Advance Micro & GameBoy Advance SP w/ Brighter Screen...)
sig.
For a while I've been looking into getting a new handheld (right now I have a pretty beat up GBA (original, with a custom made LED-backlight), but I haven't jumped yet. Why? Multimedia capabilities.
In Japan, the big "N" released the Play-Yan (and more recently, the Play-Yan Micro) for the GBA/GBA-SP/GBM (it also works on the DS, from what I've read). This is a cart that includes a headphone jack (it has a dedicated audio chip) and a slot for an SD card (up to 1GB). It can play movies and music (MPEG-4 video and MP3 audio). It isn't too much of a battery hog, either.
It's also not available outside of Japan.
Sony hit it right on the nose saying that people want a mutlifunction device. While the GBA/GBA-SP may not be the sexiest things out there, and the GBM has a small screen, they could fill that purpose with the Play-Yan. But Nintendo refuses to release it in North America, and it's pointless to import from Japan as I can't read the interface or software (it comes with a program to convert your DVDs to MPEG-4).
The PlayStation Portable is a good device, but it has a shorter battery life than the GBM, and also costs almost three times as much ($90 for a GBM, $250 for a PSP). For one PSP, I could buy a GBM, import a Play-Yan, and buy six or seven games. However, the added price does get you an amazing screen.
I really wish one of these companies would bend and make life easier. I don't suspect Sony will do so, they're probably already taking a loss on every PSP. Nintendo should bite the bullet and get around to releasing the Play-Yan in America. Maybe even release a bundle with the damn thing packaged in for $30 more. I'm sure people would go for it.
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I don't own a DS yet because of two things: size, and game selection. Initially, the library only had one or two games that slightly interested me, and I rarely used my GBA as it is. Plus, the DS was just too large to easily fit in my pants' pocket. My coat pocket would work, but I don't wear my coat in the summer.
Now, Nintendo has corrected both problems. Games such as Wario Ware: Touched, Mario Kart DS, and the upcoming Pokemon games with the ability to chat, trade, and battle via WiFi have made me drool for this system, limited only by size and money.
When the big rumors hit the main gaming sites about a redesigned DS, I couldn't have been happier over a handheld console. Rumors they may be, but often they were predictive in some fashion. My hopes were actually hieghtened, not dashed, by Nintendo's subsequent announcement. I can't find a link now, but the wording was more that they haven't announced any new DS, not that they haven't made a new DS (first rule of gaming press releases concerning rumors: Look at what they don't say).
So, now, both of my reasons for not getting a DS are dashed. I cannot wait for the Revolution.
Well, there is one more reason. But I can eat Ramen for a month.
So when are we getting a DS Micro?
I had the same problem, but found a solution for it using vpn. The idea is to create a 'insecure' zone which only offers standard (64/128 bits) WEP encryption provided by a wireless router/accesspoint, and a 'secure zone' which can only be accessed through a vpn connection on that same wireless network. The vpn can be encrypted through IPSEC using a, for example, 2048 bits encryption.
:)
Right now my main (wired network) router is an old pc running debian linux. I've connected my wireless router to a nic on the linux box, and setup the wireless router to operate as an access point (thus only providing access to the wirless network, leaving the actual routing to the linux box).
After installing openvpn on the linuxbox and fiddled with the firewall/routing rules, the insecure zone will only provide internetaccess to all adresses using UDP and a few adresses through TCP (needed to connect and play using Nintendo's WiFi service). The secure zone (accessed through the vpn connection) will get access to all udp and tcp addresses. This way, full featured network clients like laptops and desktops can install the openvpn client and use the internet with at least some decent security, while the DS can get access to its needed internetaddresses through the insecure zone.
Because Nintendo's Wifi Service uses direct UDP connections with other players, you cannot effectively prevent people who cracked your WEP code (and managed to get past the MAC address filter) to use your internet connection for UDP connections. But I doubt they'll bother cracking it just to play games on your connection
It may not be perfect, but WPA is more secure than WEP. More importantly, the hash for turning WPA passwords into keys is standardized. WEP has several different ways to do it. The upshot of this is that if you have both Macs and PCs, you have to use a hex number as a password if you use WEP. If you use WPA, you can use a real password and when your friends ask how to get on your network you don't have to ask what platform they are using or write down some difficult to remember hex string for them to type in.
I'm using an off the shelf from Best-Buy router, and it works fine with WPA. DS doesn't.
As to just filtering by MAC, I know some people who do that. But that's dumb because although it stops people from using your network, it doesn't make it at all difficult for them to sniff your packets. WPA makes that non-trivial (but not impossible).
Finally, I have the $30 Nintendo USB adapter. It sucks. See other post.
Finally finally, I use wired connections wherever possible. I have my house wired for GigE, including to my consoles. However, I don't see an ethernet jack on my DS. Does yours have one?
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
The reason Nintendo doesn't support WPA isn't because they hate you. It's because, unlike 99.9% of the major corporations out there, they care about their customers and they don't pass the buck when someone calls in having problems with their Wifi connection. Have some byzantine $20 Walmart-special router? They'll spend a couple hours with you on the phone probing it and prodding it to do whatever it takes to get it working for you. Try calling Microsoft sometime to see if they'll help you troubleshoot your router so that it'll work with Xbox Live.
They won't.
WEP is pretty trivially easy to support. How many configurations of WPA are there? Well, I'm trying to set up wpa_supplicant on my laptop right now, and goddamn, I didn't realize there were so many authentication variants.
Besides, if you're a real geek, you've got a WRT54G anyway, and those are about to support WVLANs with the custom firmware out there. That way I can run WPA/WDS and have a WEP layer for my DS and PSP.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
Regarding WPA being broken: Are you talking about the dictionary attack possibility? If that's it, then using a good randomized passphrase does the trick nicely. If you mean something else, I couldn't find any reference to it.
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