Only White DS Lite at Launch

Nintendo DS News writes "Lik Sang has posted news that only the White Nintendo DS Lite will be out at the launch. From the article: 'Nintendo of Japan informed retailers and official distributors across the island, that the Nintendo DS Lite Enamel Navy and Ice Blue will not make it out of the gate by March 2. Only Crystal White will be available on launch day. The two other colors are supposed to come out on March 11. I repeat for tired eyes and those who were not focused yet: no cool Ice Blue, no savvy Enamel Navy, only pure Crystal White available at Nintendo DS Lite debut.'"

Comments

What A TRADGEDY!

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

My heart bleeds for those gamers who will be unable to express themselves through their portable consoles colour. Seriously guys, the stripes don't make the car go faster.

Re:What A TRADGEDY!

[Anonymous Coward]

but... racecars have stripes, that mean ... that cars with stripes are faster doesn't it? I can't be wrong.

Re:What A TRADGEDY!

[chrismcdirty]

What are you going to tell me next? Flames and checkered flags don't make it go faster either? What about 3 foot spoilers? And soup can tail pipes? Say it ain't so!

Re:What A TRADGEDY!

[gstoddart]

Seriously guys, the stripes don't make the car go faster.

Of course it does. The Type R sticker I've added to my P90 has at least doubled my benchmarks. =)

Re:What A TRADGEDY!

[generic-man]

I put stickers and plastic doodads on my Nintendo DS to increase its speed and 802.11b range. It works on cars too!

Re:What A TRADGEDY!

[TCQuad]

I'll give your car some speed holes, if you'd like.

Free of charge. I'm good like that.

Re:What A TRADGEDY!

[iainl]

Surely anyone unconcerned with the look of the thing wouldn't bother upgrading from the first release of the DS anyway?

Clearly..

[StikyPad]

This is just another example of the man trying to keep us down.

Huh?

[voice_of_all_reason]

Glass, ice, crank, tweak... now Crystal White? What else are these crazy kids going to come up with...

Re:Huh?

[Rob T Firefly]

Soon to be available in Taupe, Mauve, Tressel, Wall, Stonch, Cheese, Tape, Fold, Full, Flank, Stew, Tense, Bink, Twerp..

Re:Huh?

[freeweed]

25 goldenrod, 25 canary, 25 saffron, and 25 paella.

Ok, 100 yellow.

The one I want

[Oldsmobile]

I'm waiting for the one that has been rendered in pure Chrystal meth.

Kanye could've told you....

[gatorflux]

Nintendo doesn't care about colored consoles.

Re:Kanye could've told you....

[fak3r]

that was nice, sorry I don't have mod points! MODS - please mod up

Re:Kanye could've told you....

[Anonymous Coward]

My anthropomorphized cobalt blue Gameboy Advance SP begs to differ!

Re:Kanye could've told you....

[szembek]

haha, that's a good one!

Re:Kanye could've told you....

[inkdesign]

LOL.. Let's just hope Nintendo doesn't make one that looks like this.

Gameboy Grey

[ganjadude]

whatever happened to the great classic color of Gameboy Grey??? I want Gameboy Grey!!!

Re:Gameboy Grey

[JUSTONEMORELATTE]

I really need to stop reading bash.org
God as my witness, I though you were demanding "Gameboy Ghey"

That settles it.

[PFI_Optix]

Now I'm *really* not buying it.

"Only white" indeed. Next thing you know, anyone with a colored DS will have to go to the back of the bus. They'll have special sections in the theaters. When does it stop? Do we have to have "Only white" water fountains before people see the truth???

Re:That settles it.

[TeknoHog]

When does it stop? Do we have to have "Only white" water fountains before people see the truth???

How about "only white" earbuds on mp3 players...

Re:That settles it.

[Night Goat]

That was really funny. Thanks!

It's the secret to their success.

[AdamThirteenth]

I witnessed this phenomanon when I worke dat gamestop several years ago and the new colors of the gameboy advance were coming out. Kids would come in and reserve these things even when the system had been out for I don't know how long. It's hard to get a kid to delay the satisfaction of picking up that shiney new GBA. It's my theory that kids would have multiple, sometimes many of them.

We'd even have people (read: kids) TRADE IN their old GBA's and pay a bit more to get the new color.

This whole color thing seems to me to be a very important peice of nintendo's business model.

Re:It's the secret to their success.

[Anonymous Coward]

it wasn't an issue when I was a kid (only had the grey brick), but maybe they want a color that better blends into their favorite sweatshirt or backpack so they can tote them to school and catch them on the teacher's time?

Re:It's the secret to their success.

[TubeSteak]

Seriously, Slashbots are probably guilty of the exact same type of behavior.

Example: DVD is released. 6 months later, DVD is re-released in a shinier box. Another 6 months and the Extended DVD is released, this time in a metal box.

Now how many Slashnerds are guilty of this behavior? Scratch that, they're not guilty, they're proud of it. Buying Star Wars and/or Lord of The Rings 4 different ways is a badge of their geekdom.

I mean... how many of them own 3 or 4 iPods? And yet they scoff at other people doing the exact same thing.

Re:It's the secret to their success.

[PFI_Optix]

I mean... how many of them own 3 or 4 iPods? And yet they scoff at other people doing the exact same thing.

This was the first thing I thought of. I know several people who have:

iPod
iPod Mini
iPod Shuffle
iPod Nano
iPod Video

It still amazes me sometimes how people can be such willing consumer trendwhores.

Re:It's the secret to their success.

[Anonymous Coward]

How decadent. It's almost like these people have more than $400 of disposable income over a six-month span to buy the next generation iPod. Don't they know they could be building MythTV boxen or something?

Re:It's the secret to their success.

[Anonymous Coward]

These are just the adults (or rich kids) that buy the new colored Nintendo DS. Same people. They also buy cars because of the color or because it has shiny metal bits on the console or because of the latest fad, or ...

This has nothing to do with geekdom or even Slashdot. This is just mass market sheepdom.

Why?

[grumbel]

Ok, the color of the DS isn't exactly the most important feature, never the less it bother me quite a bit that most 'cool new colors' that Nintendo announces for their consoles never make it into the stores or only quite some time after the original release. Changing the color of a console doesn't exactly sound like rocket science, so why does Nintendo not manage to actually provide a bit of color selection right up from the start?

Re:Why?

[DarkJC]

I wouldn't say that 9 days after release is quite some time. If you want a colored one, wait a little more than a week and there you go.

Re:Why?

[wampus]

According to http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3148295 they are having production problems with the other colors. No real details, but 1-up certainly is making it sound like the end of the world.

Re:Why?

[dogbowl]

because, historically when introducing new colors for the gameboy models sales go up. Same system, same capabilities, just a new die color in the plastic shell.

Wierd, but true.

Re:Why?

[MagicDude]

It's only a week difference in release of the colored units. They could have easily postponed the release of the white one for several days to make a combined release, but there's several possible reasons why not to.

There are going to be people who won't care about color and will want the DS right away and they will come in at the early release date. Then a week later, those who want colored units will come in. Spreading demand out over a week rather than concentrating it on one day will be good for production and for distributors.

Ssecondly, it's not easy to just produce all colors at the same rate. The machinary needed to produce one color over another has to be recalibrated for each variant, and this process isn't practical to do every day. Thus its more efficient to spend a week producing white, and then a week producing blue, and so forth. I'm not an expert by any means, but I remember on a trip to the Ben & Jerry's factory in Vermont that they only produce 2 flavors every day for nationwide distribution, so I'd presume the same principle can apply to different mass production lines. Sure it may cause some hiccups initially, but in the long term it's more efficient to do production this way.

Re:Why?

[TomHandy]

As others have said, it is to help drive sales and renew interest in a platform. It's sort of a more subtle version of things like case re-designs, etc. After a platform has been out for a while, sales start to dry up, naturally. By releasing the console in a new color, or in a new case, you can sometimes drive up interest........ both from people who maybe never bought it before but see "new" and think "hey, I'll break down and buy one!". And of course there are the diehards who are willing to buy something in a new form factor or color even if they already own one. Granted, a new form factor is easier to understand (i.e. I traded my original PS2 in for the new slim PStwo because the smaller size appealed to me), but they both help the company squeeze more life out of a product after the initial sales spikes have ended.

solution: "bling" stickers

[Anonymous Coward]

"I made my DS Lite sing when i added the bling!
It's not just a kid thing. I love to bling!"

Simple economics.

[TCQuad]

why does Nintendo not manage to actually provide a bit of color selection right up from the start?

There are two type of customers: those who want a DS and those who want a DS in a certain color. Those who want to buy the DS will get the standard white one and be happy. The Navy/Blue people will wait a few days and get theirs. In doing this, the people who just want the DS and don't care about color won't pick up random blue ones, increasing the availability of blue ones for those who want colored DS, making everyone happy.

Re:Simple economics.

[Anonymous Coward]

And the third type who want both a DS and a colored DS and will buy two in two weeks time...

Three foot spoilers?

[tepples]

What about 3 foot spoilers?

Who needs spoilers about 3-foot-tall hobbits? Everyone who needs to know already knows what happens in The Lord of the Rings.

Re:Three foot spoilers?

[Verteiron]

You know, that just about caused me physical pain. I'm fairly certain my brain tried to liquify and run out my ears.

Is that your DS or your brother's?

[tepples]

the color of the DS isn't exactly the most important feature

A distinctive color is one of the important features when you're buying more than one DS, such as one each for more than one person in your household.

Re:Is that your DS or your brother's?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you claim yours by licking it? And them claim your brother's by licking his as well?

That's how it worked with other toys...

IN JAPAN

[Kurayamino-X]

Repeat: IN JAPAN
personally, I couldn't give a stuff if Japanese have to wait a whole 9 days to get a different colour, becuase when it's released everywhere else all three colours will be available.
Why is this still news?

Re:IN JAPAN

[Cornelius]

Well, for starters, how about the fact that there are people - like myself - who live in Japan.

Don't be so region-centric.

Re:IN JAPAN

[iainl]

In short, because anyone who really cares that much about a massive one-week wait will be importing from Japan.

If there's a delay in the US release, who cares? You're obviously not bothered about waiting months after the Japanese release to get it, so an extra week shouldn't make any difference.

hhm..

[Kuku_monroe]

I just can't believe nobody misses the pink model. Oh wait..

exchange rate

[Scrameustache]

I couldn't give a stuff if Japanese have to wait a whole 9 days

But 9 japanese days is like 42 American days!

Slashdot STUFF THAT MATTERS!

[AzraelKans]

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