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The DS Lite U.S. Launch
Yesterday Nintendo began selling the upgraded version of their popular DS handheld system, and by all accounts sales are going very well. 1up has a look at the story of the DS so far, from somewhat rocky launch up through this last amazing Christmas season. From the article: "Nintendo had lost its collective mind. At least, that's how it looked back in January 2004 when the company announced its latest system, the DS. 'We have developed Nintendo DS based upon a completely different concept from existing game devices in order to provide players with a unique entertainment experience for the 21st century,' company president Satoru Iwata stated--a bold proclamation. But few were buying it." PC Magazine has details on what was upgraded, and Engadget has pictures from the NYC launch party.
I live in Toronto and the stores here open on Sunday at 12:00 noon. Not having pre-ordered a DS Lite I left at 12:10 to go buy one. I needed to go to 4 different stores before I found a store that was completely sold out. And every store I went to had about 5 other people asking if they could buy a DS Lite.
If that's how the early morning went, I can't imagine how the rest of the day went. Sounds like a pretty successful launch for a product revision.
... for the other colors. Bright white? Come on Nintendo, come with the pretty DSLites!
It's a nice product, with some really nice bright screens. It's my first DS, so I can't really compare it to the original model, but it puts my Palm's screen to shame. Would love it to death if it weren't for the blue stuck pixel in the upper screen. I'll probably send it back to them under warranty in a few weeks, after I've had a chance to mess around with it a little.
I'm really curious what Nintendo has in store for it in combination with the Wii.
I think I'll have to buy one of these... once they come out with more colors (*crosses fingers for black*). They're relatively cheap ($130 on NewEgg), there are some cool games for it (Zelda, Resident Evil, and of course... Tetris), it's a decent amount smaller and lighter than the regular DS, and the brightness is adjustable. Overall, it looks like a very svelte little machine -- it looks like it's a lot easier to stick in a pocket than a regular DS. I WANT, I WANT!
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.
One of the things I like about the DS is its buttons... I like the way the buttons and the D-pad "click" when you push them down.
I tried the DS Lite at the store, and I didn't like the way they changed the buttons... they don't have that "click" anymore, that's the best way I can explain it. Maybe it's something I'd get used to, but I didn't really like it.
My wife just upgraded her DS to a DS Lite. On the DS we started out with one of the Nintendo screen protectors, but it quickly got scratched up to where you could not see the lower screen through the mess.
To solve the problem we simply bought some high quality Palm Pilot screen protectors, then cut this to the right dimensions for the DS. It works flawlessly with the DS and the stylus, and looks better after use than the Nintendo protectors do new. This pad hardly shows marks at all, even after playing stylus intensive games. They are less than $1 each at your local office supply store.
Yesterday we picked up a DS Lite and the first thing we did was throw a Palm protector onto the screen. Works like a charm.
After both my brother (PSP) and sister (DS) have apparently succumbed to the mobile craze, I'm ready to take the leap in with 'em with the DS Lite.
I fell in love with this trimmed-down tricked-out console the instant I saw one of my classmates in college playing an imported version, and the only thing holding me back now is the promise of ice blue DS Lites.
While it'll be a shame to have to pass up Ratchet: Size Matters, the point remains that Insomniac does not a console make, especially when the console in question is a $250 brick versus a console that can also default into your home media player.
How about you back up your claims with some actual source? 360 flunking out of the console race? Go back under your bridge.
Uhh...
/ 1438225
The 360 has without question flunked out of the console race in Japan.
The 360 appears to be flunking out of the console race in Europe with a pathetic 600-700k or so sold after seven months.
And most humiliating of all:
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/12
Not only is the 360 selling worse than the first Xbox, it isn't even on track to match Dreamcast numbers. You have to go all the way back to the 3DO or CDi for a system that sold worse than the 360.
I just got done reading some of the comments here below about the color. I also agree that white is not exactly the "pretty color" I would choose for the new DS Lite. However it is a classic color aside from the gray that all Nintendo's start out with. I would however would be extreamly impressed if they released a black soild color version of the DS.
A sandwich would be the correct anwser.
Zero.
And here's what you need to run Linux or other homebrew programs on your DS.
I got mine last week, from a friend of a friend who works at Nintendo.
:)
Sadly, I opened it to find two stuck pixels (red and green)
Apparently, Nintendo won't replace the unit unless there are three or more.
Anyone know how to 'stick' a pixel . . ?
For some bizarre reason we don't get the new DS for another 2 weeks here in the UK: but they are advertising black as well as white versions.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
I picked up the last one in stock at a Game Crazy (Hollywood Video's game store-in-a-store) at 6pm yesterday after trying maybe three places. I picked up copies of Brain Age, Sprung (dating sim) and Worms. I haven't owned a Nintendo handheld since the Gameboy Color and I was very impressed with the build quality and the brightness of the screen. It reminds me of a miniaturized version of my 12-inch iBook G4, which I just sold, so there's already some nostalgic attachment right there. Once Opera is released for the DS, the DS lite will fill an important niche in my computing spectrum (MB Pro for work/home, XBox 360 for games, Linux fileserver & DS Lite for quick 'n easy games in bed or on the go).
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
This is the best portable console that has EVER been released. I could not be happier with it. It's cheap, there's a ton of games, the battery lasts a long time, the screens are bright, and the colors are vibrant. Nintendo really did a great job with this one.
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
Actually, a lot of people complained about precisely that same "clickiness" with the original DS, which is why they made the change - the new controls are supposed to be more in line with the GB Micro and past systems like the SNES.
--- Bwah?
I went to Circuit City at 10am (opening) yesterday, and picked mine up. Also picked up 4 games (Brain Age, Tetris DS, Mario Kart, Super Mario DS). I would not have bought so many, but I had a few gift cards to various stores. I was surprised when I went to Best Buy late in the afternoon that there were still a couple DS Lite's sitting on the shelves considering the number of people who were at Circuit City buying one in the morning.
Having never played the Fat DS, I am very impressed with the games, and some of the unique control methods that the touchscreen allows for. I keep having to fight with my girlfriend to get some playing time, as she is addicted soduko (comes with Brain Age).
I am probably going to end up having to buy her one so I can actually play mine.
Just saw one in Zellers here in Canada. Remember those Game and Watch dual LCD screen games (Donkey Kong)? Well, that's what the DS Lite more closely resembles in its new form factor: smaller, lighter, and crap are the new screens bright! It is easier to hold, but the buttons do feel mushier and don't "click" as much as the original DS buttons. The power button has been moved to side, thank god, where it should have been in the first place and the cosmetics are much improved. The white case is very sexy.
I can't emphasize just how bright the new screens are. I actually turned the brightness down a notch or two while playing with one in the brightly lit store. That's fairly impressive.
Just took back my DS and got a DS lite. So far I like most of the changes. However, the DS lite feels more rickity to me, the buttons are not set as much as the regular DS, and it just feels like it is more fragile. I'll just have to be a bit more careful I guess.
I got mine at Best Buy a little after opening on sunday (I dunno how many they had, they didn't even have a display set up. The guy had to go get it from the stock room) and New Super Mario Brothers. Not having played the Fat DS, I'm impressed with this little system. And I don't mind the white, matches my iPod! ;)
I'll be getting one of these for one reason only: New Super Mario Bros.! It's about time they come out with another 2D platformer Mario game.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
900000 / 6 weeks = 150000 per week average.
Just my guess.
I'm never a Microsoft supporter, but there is no way you could just rule them out at this point. They have billions to just flood into it. I doubt they have any way of becoming #1 in this race, but that does not mean they don't matter.
I picked mine up yesterday... no interesting journey stories to tell though, I pre-ordered mine the day the USA release date was announced.
One thing I like is the new brightness settings. There are four, the lowest being equivalent to the old DS's screen. On just the second highest setting colors are very vibrant. It's hard to describe, but the games just look better.
The higher settings mean I can play on the bus fine. I used to have trouble with the old DS getting too much glare, not anymore!
The only flaw is the fact GBA games stick out of the GBA slot about an inch. If like me you're one of those people who hated playing classic Game Boy games on your Game Boy Advance, this will really irk you. I suggest picking up a used SP, that's that I use to play my old GBA games and they're getting pretty cheap.
The only difference is color. U.S. has "polar white" only right now, whereas Japan has white, light blue, and dark navy blue, and the upcoming Euro release will be Jet Black.
At first I thought that was a reason to import one (they run about $200ish on eBay), but I'm glad I decided against it and just went for the US model. While asthetically I might have prefered black or the dark navy, the new slick finish is great but it takes fingerprints like nobody's business. Since I keep a sunglasses shami around to clean the screens anyway it's not a huge problem, but on the white you can't see them unless you hold it up to a light and really look for them. I have a friend who imported one of the dark navy ones and the fingerprints show up much more. It'd be a nightmare if you are OCD like me and would be cleaning it every time you sat it down.
That said, it's the best purchase I've made in a long time. I am so totally floored by the quality of the screens...games that I finished long ago (Super Princess Peach, Mario and Luigi : Partners In Time) look like brand new games. The colors are incredibly vibrant (the yellows and greens that were there the whole time but I never saw astounded me), and the backgrounds pop out and the detail is so much more apparent. I never really wanted to admit that I noticed it before, but the regular DS has very muddy looking screens. I'm only running on brightness level 3 (out of 4) and it's literally like night and day when comparing side-by-side with the normal DS.
Thankfully, I've found a use for my old one - it's going to keep Brain Age in my living room where I can access it easily when watching TV and such; now when people visit I'll be able to play the great two-player games (that, thankfully, only require one cart unlike the old days where everyone needed their own copy) with them instead of telling them how if they bought one we could play together.
AE
FWIW, if you want to order one, Amazon have 'em for £100. Personally, I've got a lovely black mp3 player which I carry around pretty well everywhere, so I've ordered the white DS just for a nice bit of contrast. Plus, I don't want to look like I'm playing on a PSP...
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
The only difference is color.
I have also read that import DS units will not allow you to connect to in-store kiosks. (Game stores have kiosks that let you download demos wirelessly to your DS). However, since I've never done that even with my non-import DS, that's no biggie.
All these stories of sold out DS Lites make me laugh. I called one local EBGames/GameStop (of which there are four within a half mile radius of each other) and the lady that answered said that they had sold-out pre-orders for a few weeks now, for all stores within a 100 mile radius (exaggerate much?). I called up the local Target and the guy that picked up said he had a few. I got there at 3:15PM (they opened at 9AM), and I was surprised to see at least ten DS Lite's on the shelves! Target has become my new launch day source.
I picked one up in Cambridge MA @ Best Buy about 12:30pm yesterday. I asked and they still had several left. They were running a special to get a free copy of brain age with a DS lite purchase (coupon to print out on Bestbuy's front page). I bought a DS Fat w/ a copy of mario kart days before the DS lite announcement. When I heard about this I decided to just return the DS fat and hold on to Mario Kart till the DS lite came out. Definitely worth waiting. I'm 30 and this is a much more "adult" looking unit. It's all of the things you've probably already read (blah better screen, blah sleek, blah). I really like the feel of it (for some reason, the DS Fat left my hands sore after about 30 minutes of playing). I have a PSP and a copy of Syphon filter (dell had a special @ one point where it was $160 so I picked it up on a whim). It's going on eBay. It's probably a decent system, but I just don't want that complexity. It's more than I want/need. I played new SMB, what a blast. love it.
Like a few other lucky souls here, I picked mine up when a SuperTarget in Dallas broke the release date. Not much to say that most everyone else here hasn't--the screens are clear, the redesign is attractive--but I'd like to attest to how the new system feels in comparison to the old one, which I think is still the question mark for a few people here. After 12 days of extensive gaming, here's the skinny:
Mario Kart DS: For old-school d-pad & buttons games, the DS Lite is heaven. The "mushy" buttons have gotten some flak on this strand for not having a clicky feeling, but they're a helluva lot more comfortable for 30-minute-plus sessions, and the d-pad is much more responsive, which helps in a game with a crapload of powersliding.
New Super Mario Bros.: Same improvement, but the relocated, shrunken select/start buttons are a drawback. Sure, they're not essential to normal gameplay, but it's hard to hit them quickly for those occasional emergency pauses...I suppose Nintendo's trying to encourage people to shut the clamshell for sleep mode instead.
Metroid Prime Hunters: The reduced weight helps, but otherwise, my hand cramped up just as much as it would with the old unit. The shoulder buttons are fine and the touch screen is just as responsive (though it took me a second to adjust to the new stylus' larger tip), but it's still not wholly ergonomic stuff for the stylus-aim control scheme.
Brain Age: Lighter weight is nice for the game's vertical mode, but just as I'd heard before, the new microphone dislikes the word "blue" more than the old one...any BA players know exactly what I'm talking about. Annoying.
Overall, of course, it's a thumbs-up.
The line was out the door at the retailer where I had reserved my DS-lite. When I finally got to the front, the guy running the register looked up, saw that the line hadn't shrunk at all, and remarked, "Oh no, they keep re-spawning!"
They had like 70 units and 60 on reserve, and a few people were taking advantage of that to buy more than one. "For a friend." Yeah.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is insufficiently documented.
I was wondering if anyone could list some *good* games for it
Also what are the prices of the games (preferably in CAD but USD is good too...)
--Valthan
Actually much more capable handhelds have tried and have never got the formula right. This market has nothing to do with masive amounts of money being thrown at it, in fact, that is precisely what Sony tried to do with the PSP and has been slowly fading since.
The Korean GP32 and the Wonderswan were the two handhelds that had some potential, but didn't make it.
Microsoft has no chance IMO, simply because they rely on DirectX and their API's for everything. Nintendo is able to fall back on a whole other platform with their handhelds and have a long history to pull knowledge and design from. To me, 3D is NOT what a handheld is about and for the most part the DS proves this. The majority of AAA titles are 2D and a few utilize some 3D but in basic and intuitive ways.
I actually believe the DS would be better if it were only 1 slightly larger screen with the touchscreen functionality. Basics are what sells in handhelds: plain/simple/fun/quick. Microsoft can't do basics.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
"I called up the local Target and the guy that picked up said he had a few. I got there at 3:15PM (they opened at 9AM), and I was surprised to see at least ten DS Lite's on the shelves! Target has become my new launch day source."
Most Target stores have been selling the new DS Lites for over a week. Check Slashdot archives for the story.
Yeah. You're right, but I wish they hadn't changed it. I liked the clickyness. The GBA:SP (or atleast my newer one) has it too.
The new buttons just feel mushy in comparison. I don't like it at all. It doesn't feel as clean.
There might also be a problem with speach in games like Brain Age.. Saying the word "blue" doesn't work well, etc..
Also importing voides your warranty.
Other than that there is no difference that I know of. Every game works, and you can swtich the language back to English.
I think it's worth pointing out that the parent poster has had the bottom screen protector scratched up very badly. With everyone that I know, including a family where three people share a DS (for about a constant 7 hours of use a day between them--yes, they're gaming nerds), there has been no damage at all to the bottom screen using fingers or the stylus.
Admittedly, if you wanted to, I'm sure you could damage it if you tried, but I'm fairly sure the screen wasn't built to withstand extended play using a steak knife as a stylus, for example.
Oh, my mistake... I thought the large number of press releases stating the companies who will no longer be producing UMD versions of their films, the total lack of quality games and the glacially slow release schedule, as well as the NPD retail sales numbers showing it lagging and slowing monthly were good indicators. I'm actually not a huge Nintendo fan, and regardless of what the OP was stating, my statement stands: I'm tired of people thinking that MS can win at anything by simply throwing enough money at the problem.
That is NOT how things work, and it is that mentaility and the large number of morons who gladly accept it that cause the problem in the first place.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
I've played Brain Age and it's fine - the microphone hardware doesn't care what language you speak in, LOL. ;-) It's the reigon of the game you play that is.
As to voiding your warranty, you are absolutely correct and that was something I meant to mention in my original reply. That was the other deciding factor for me, and could end up being very important.
AE
Saying the word "blue" doesn't work well, etc..
That's easy to fix. Just say, "brue."
Abaddon: An Xbox 360 Indie game
And so what that the PS2 is outselling the XBOX360? The PS2 has reached bargain bin status in pricing per unit. The PS2 has a terrific back catalogue of titles and doubles as a decent DVD Player for the consumer's assumed 25 inch television.
Additionally, maybe you should RTFA you linked:
Unfortunately, it doesn't come with a wrist strap/thumb pad. Of course, they're selling one on store.nintendo.com but it looks like it's the exact same as the old DS's strap.
I've been trying to get the strap from my old DS into the lite for a while, but the holes on the DS are pretty small. Getting it in the first hole isn't that tough, but I push and push and it won't come out the other end. Think I'm going to have to find a needle.
I'll tell you what, no level of anality is going to keep all dirt and dust off that screen. It's a fact of life. I keep my systems as clean as humanly possible, but small scratches formed. While I was playing metroid I noticed with such a demanding and mostly blind use of the touch screen that my hand would accidentally slide toward the touch screen. Rather than take the risk of more serious fingernail damage, I bought a five dollar procector, licensed by Nintendo.
I bet Ben Rothlisberger wishes he took a similar precautionary step. Hyperbole, I know. I just wanted to laugh at his idiocy.
One trade-off for another. While I miss the clickiness of the original DS, this is more than outweighed by the fact that the buttons are raised and rounded. I'm already noticing that games that require using multiple buttons are much easier to control. The d-pad on the Lite is a total blessing. The original d-pad was just mushy. I could actually play a fighting game on the new model! And lets not forget about the resin molding on the new model. Wow, I can actually grip this thing.
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
I could actually play a fighting game on the new model! And lets not forget about the resin molding on the new model.
Interesting. I can play Bleach DS fairly well with my old DS.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Just to be clear, are you claiming that the previous AC keeps a highly-trained and well-respected cadre of market analysts up his ass?
Take a look at the numbers here and here. These are about four months apart, both before and after New Super Mario Brothers, and the January numbers are when there was still a shortage of DSes. Even then, they were moving three times the number of units. More recently, they're selling about six times as many, which has been pretty consistant since supply has been re-established.
Well, even though you are AC you still have managed to make a straight ass of yourself.
DSL 135,614
PSP 24,595
PS2 18,513
GBASP 4,364
Even conservative numbers as these above have the DSL (and this is not counting regular DS sales, just DS Lite) at over 5:1 so when you add in regular DS sales the number is pretty damn close to a 10:1 ass-handing.
Also see how the PS2 is selling as well as the PSP, a 5 year old console. Christ the GBA SP still manages ~5k/month to the ~20k/month average of the PSP. *cue taps*
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
Also don't forget all UK internet orders are returnable withing a 14 day period by law. I've ordered mine from GAME, and so the return can be done to a store if there is a problem, no questions asked.
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