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New Nintendo DS to Include Camera, Music
BobB-nw writes "Watch out Apple, here comes Nintendo. Nintendo plans to launch a new version of its popular DS portable gaming device with a camera and music player function, according to a report in the Sunday edition of The Nikkei Business Daily. The new version will have better wireless capability for connecting to the Internet and will cost under $189, the report said. It will be offered first in Japan, it said. The DS first went on sale in 2004, and a second version, called the DS Lite, debuted two years later in 2006. Both have sold extremely well, with worldwide sales of the DS products at 77.5 million units as of the end of June this year."
Sign me up. Already have a Lite, but will probably pick up one of these too.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
Any news on the new Playstation Wii?
Any piece of technology will advance until it has an MP3 player function. This includes household appliances, and, apparently, the DS.
Everything is subjective.
Calling the new DS "Gameboy DS" is incorrect. The GameBoy line of portables ended with the GameBoy Advance. The DS is known simply as the "Nintendo DS".
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Who wants a body massage?
I'm disappointed.
...the camera will be useful for any games? Something along the lines of how it was used with some Gizmondo games, or that weird card game with the PS2 EyeToy? And what about the media player functionality? Could this herald the appearance of games like Audiosurf, games that react to the music playing, on the DS?
Nintendo has generally been about not bloating its systems in the past. Why would they release a new DS with all this crap while it's still going strong?
An all new way to divide your user base.
I own both a DS Lite & an iPod Touch (1st gen). I enjoy both of them, though I have been getting a lot more use out of my iPod Touch in the last month or so. Most DS games have music, so I really don't see myself listening to different music while playing a game on the DS. Likewise, unless the DS will include an address book, calendar, e-mail, scientific calculator and web browser on board, plus the ability to sync with my computer & download free apps wirelessly, Apple has nothing to worry about.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Now I have to buy yet another Nintendo DS!
adding all this extra stuff to a portable gaming console is just bloatware and evidence that the company doesn't have its priorities straight
We've discussed rumors of this on gbadev.org and pocketheaven.com. Consensus was that Nintendo might do this to make it less likely that people will buy adapters like SuperCard DS One, CycloDS Evolution, or M3 Real for video and then end up using them to pirate games.
When the DS Lite was introduced, the supply of aftermarket accessories for the DS dried up completely. I wonder if the same thing will happen to DS Lite accessories. It would make sense as it will help to drive sales for this new hardware release.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
Hopefully that means WPA capability (finally...)
Most DS games have music, so I really don't see myself listening to different music while playing a game on the DS. Likewise, unless the DS will include an address book, calendar, e-mail, scientific calculator and web browser on board
You just described the feature set of DSOrganize 3.1129, a very popular homebrew application for the Nintendo DS.
Any piece of technology will advance until it has an MP3 player function.
And can send email, and run Linux.
Since it market does not appear to have slowed significantly or run into serious competition, why would they refresh the hardware?
To reduce demand for R4, as I mentioned.
I think most of us saw this one coming, but the article is completely devoid of any information. First it's still just speculation that this is going to be the new announcement. For all any of us know it could be another new device to interact with the Wii. The only evidence the article even presents is that another news publication carried the rumor yesterday.
There's no mention of how they're going to add music and make it easy to put music on the device. There's no details on the camera either or even if the physical dimensions of the DS are going to be further reduced. Wouldn't it have been better to wait until Thursday when the product is actually announced and all of the details are released?
I don't mind a little speculation, but this had absolutely no substance to it at all. It's just a rumor repeated from another publication without anything of value added. Without the rest of the fluff about sales figures and release dates this article would have been one or two lines at most. What a complete waste of time.
taco, you sound like my mother.
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
Hopefully that means WPA capability (finally...)
Probably not to existing games. WPA would need driver support, and the Wi-Fi driver is part of the game, not the DS firmware.
But in my opinion, WEP + MAC filtering is good enough. It won't prevent everyone from breaking into your network, but it still establishes an attacker's intent to break into your network and diverts wardrivers to your neighbor's open network.
I'd like to see more productivity apps for the DS. My son cracked the case of his DS, and I tried fixing it with a new case. It worked, but I guess I didn't plug in the secondary video cable too well because it acts all wonky sometimes; so I got him a new one and kept the old one for myself.
But I don't use it at all (it's stable when you are... it'd go wonky in the car when we hit a bump or something). I don't have any electronic organizers or anything, so I'd really like to see some productivity apps for it. I mean, it's got wifi and everything built in, it seems you should be able to do email, address books, calendars...
I know there is a homebrew group of people who are working on such things, but it seems like another giant pain. I don't have time to tinker. It's odd that Nintendo didn't see fit to release something along those lines themselves.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
I was born in the early 80's. I love nintendo. Super mario brothers duckhunt and to tell the truth I'm only good at nintendo and super nintendo, any system more complicated than that i;m lost. I do have my doubts about how well this product will do though as nintendo is not known for mp3 camera's etc... But if the product is good, then it will sucdeed. With the net, a bad product won't last long and a good one won't remain unknown long. Hope it's good and has Mario brothers
When will this be released in Japan? I'll be flying through Tokyo in November and the Narita Airport has a huge number of stores. I'm sure one of them will be carrying this thing.
These reports of a new "Gameboy DS" (it's just the Nintendo DS) are still, as of right now, speculation. Admittedly, the Nintendo Media Summit is just around the corner, so the rumors are believable but there's hardly a guaranteed new device coming out.
Absolutely what I was thinking. If they beef up the encryption and can break the pirate cards, it's worth it to Nintendo. They just need enough of a carrot to get people to upgrade and I don't think a little-used camera and MP3 player are enough.
with a 'no comment' style reply, here:
http://kotaku.com/5056082/nintendo-on-that-new-ds-rumor
Baka Drew
Nintendo will not be making an SD card slot equipped cartridge available.
Nintendo doesn't have to. Team Cyclops has done so.
Nintendo won't release a device with a PC-Compatible memory card slot for obvious reasons.
What's that slot on the front of my Wii console between the reset and eject buttons?
While the unit has Wifi, they generally only allow connections to their matchup service.
I seem to remember Nintendo DS Browser being able to go to web sites not controlled by Nintendo.
Nintendo DS sales are starting to slow (the PSP has gained popularity over it) and Nintendo always announce successors to handhelds just after they've peaked (DS was announced when the GBA was going strong). The graphics on the DS have long since peaked, developers really aren't able to squeeze any more out of the system. There's also not been any notable first party DS games for a long time.
However, 2 months notice for a new console? That's incredibly short notice. I can't see any third party games making that launch (unless of course they've an incredibly good NDA in place).
Circumstances indicate a DS2. Time frame by the paper indicated a DS redesign. I'd say it's more likely the paper got the dates wrong and there's a DS2 launching mid next year.
...as well as videos via some inexpensive and non-intrusive third party hardware. It's the main reason I purchased it and one of the biggest advertised selling feature of the little card.
...The little card that also happens to be widely used for running pirated games.
Coincidence that Nintendo is coming out with this now?
And unfortunately, even the coffee shops and public libraries seem to be mostly running WPA these days.
Then go to a McDonald's restaurant to use a Wayport AP. Wayport has an agreement with Nintendo to provide complimentary Internet access for every Nintendo WFC game (excluding Nintendo DS Browser).
Nintedos already brought out 2 versions of the two screen wonder and the lite works very well. Its not like they need to boost market share over the PSP (well not here in UK I don't know about other countries).
I think its far more likely that Ninty will either unveil the successor to the DS which may well be back compatible and have these new features but also have a more powerful CPU/GPU after all it was released 4 years ago.
Id hope to see a new Nintedo hand held and if this is that I'd say look for release Q4 2009 to get in for xmas then it will have had a 5 year run which seems to be about right for console generations
Most Damage is done by people who are AWAKE
I agree with you. As the DS isn't forced to be connected to the internet all the time like the Wii or XBox 360, there's little chance that a user would install a console firmware update that would brick a hacked firmware or disable Slot1/2 card. So they use the carrot instead of the stick - new shiny carrot vs your old machine that can play homebrew/backup roms but has poor wifi and no camera...
OK, technically the Wii isn't "forced" to be connected to the internet all the time... You always have the option of not connecting the thing to your router - and if you do that, games will still just work. To my knowledge Nintendo doesn't push out firmware updates, either - they send you mails, suggesting you upgrade firmware, but that's it...
Now, regarding the matter of DS updates bricking DSes - it has happened before.
Specifically, old versions of FlashMe (from before Mario Kart DS, the first DS game with internet connectivity) wrote some of its own code into regions of flash ROM which would later be used by Ninteno Wi-Fi connection to store router settings and so on. So once the user booted up a game with Nintendo Wi-Fi support and configured their internet connection, their DS would be bricked. (Fortunately, FlashMe included a contingency that allowed people to re-flash their DSes even after something like this...)
Of course, I don't think it's entirely fair to say that's Nintendo's fault. I mean, after all, nobody told Flashme they could use that area of ROM...
Bow-ties are cool.
Sarge: "And of course it plays MP3s. Everything's gotta play MP3s - except your MP3 player! It now plays MP4s, 'cause everybody knows MP3s are a dead technology. They're our generation's betamax. And the next generation's Blu-ray."
that means i'll be able to find an old DS for cheap. =P
aside from the size and aesthetics, is their any difference in functionality between 1st gen DS and the DS lite?
The biggest difference is the screen. The DS Lite's screen is a lot brighter.
The tactile response on the controls is different, too - but I haven't used the DS Lite enough to say whether it's an improvement or not. But the smaller form factor of the Lite does make it easier to reach the touch screen in games that use both the control pad and touch screen...
Bow-ties are cool.
It's called a Nokia cell phone.
It has a camera, plays music, and games.
Plus, it has this extra bonus feature which allows it to replace my watch, and I can even phone people with it.
(caveat - I own hundreds of shares of both Nokia (NOK) and Nintendo (NTDOY.PK))
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Until I wasn't able to locate 1GB SD cards anymore, I used my NDS with a Nintendo authorized PlayYan. If you close the screen, it lasts for 20 hours on a NDS Lite. It literately lasts longer than any other device I have that can play mp3's. My N95 lasts 5 hours tops.
Reason? The playyan uses a lower power hardware decoder. The same chip used in the iPod If I recall correctly. The playyan also plays mp4 video, but I didn't really make good use of this as the battery life was only about 6 hours on video, and the GBA resolution kinda made watching anything on it silly when my commute is between 10 and 30 minutes.
If they really wanted to 'sell' it to geeks and made it viable for many, they should include a second game card slot and a regular SDHC micro slot. Yes four slots. Reason:
1) One application cart, eg Opera+Skype
2) One game cart
3) One SDHC micro slot for reading mp3's and storing contacts from Skype or VoIP software and storing photos from the camera.
4) One GBA slot for the same purpose as before.
Nintendo also needs to change it's attitude to piracy, the SDHC card should be able to download from the Nintendo virtual console anything that the user purchased for their Wii, or saved to the SDHC card with the Wii, or download from the Wii to the NDS. Including contacts. To prevent the piracy of the games or using pirated games it should only play games that are digitally signed, and only allow signed games to write to the flash.
Unsigned games (eg homebrew), as much as people want to say people do this, far more people use it for piracy. A workaround for this is to create a hash for the game, and have the Wii or directly the Nintendo store check the rom image. If it's not in the database, it won't sign it. If it's a homebrew (eg submitted to Nintendo for inclusion on it's store, much like Wiiware) that wasn't downloaded from the Nintendo store and signed, it won't run it. This would also allow for the game to be updated by the NDS/Nintendo Store. By offering a legitimate way to put homebrew on the NDS, there is no use for the flash carts.
I somehow doubt Nintendo reads slashdot, and Nintendo has classically ignored wanted features until they have become commodity in other devices and cheap to do on their own.
taco, you sound like my mother.
I'd like to nominate this as a candidate for "one of the worst things you can ever say to your girlfriend."
Last night I played a blank tape at full volume. The mime next door went nuts.
Read it on Gamasutra this morning. Apparently, the websites of Japanese newspapers Nikkei Sangyo Shimbun and Yomiuri Shimbun both reported this.
We'll probably find out for certain on Thursday, October 2nd, when Nintendo holds it's major press conference: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20284
and, apparently, the DS.
It's probably Nintendo's way to say to Apple and Google :
Apple & Google : - I haz a PDA with a Camera ! ...mii to !
Nintendo : -
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Either you've never used DSOrganize, or you've never used a decent PDA.
The difference between using the iPod Touch calendar/address book apps and using using DSOrganize is kind of like the difference between writing a report in Word and writing a report in Photoshop.
Yes, you technically could set up a bunch of 8.5x11 PSDs and make text boxes on all of them and print them out, just like you technically can do PIM tasks on the DS.
The difference is in ease of use and convenience.
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
I wonder if having flash (since this is Nintendo I'm betting there will be some amount of built-in flash, ala' the Wii.) means that you might also be able to download VC titles for some of the older systems... 8bit is definitely doable on the DS, as would most 16-bit games. VC SNES on the DS would be a killer app for a new hardware revision -- a camera and mp3 player alone isn't all that compelling, since everything from my phone to my grandmother can already do that.
You joke, but actually you're onto something :
And an NES emulator
Once an SDK appears for whatever the platfrom, in addition to enabling MP3 support and running Linux (if not already supported, otherwise replace with *BSD), what are the two next thing that are compiled on absolutely whatever device ?
- A port of Doom/Quake/Duke/Unreal/whatever latest opensource is still within hardware perfs.
- A port of ZSnes/Gens/Mame/whatever emulator fits into the perfs of the machine.
(And only the perfs, even if the hardware control scheme lacks any decent input : Having only touch screens and accelerometers hasn't stopped the OpenMoko and the iPhone receiving ports of Doom. At least at some future point in time, the OpenMoko would probably get gamepad-over-bluetooth support like PalmOS device).
No single device has ever made an exception. Even RockBox has emulators.
What makes things worse is, whereas BlackBerrys have been a niche market and Palms are dying, iPhone is going to be a mass consumed accessory.
And that may piss off Nintendo, because every game ran on an emulator is one less <strike>pigeon</strike> consumer, who may have had a chance of rebuying once-again all the classics.
The old (suit-happy) Nintendo would probably have tried suing the emulators into disappearance (and may have had some limited success given Apple totalitarian control of app distribution). But since then they have changed and partly recognized potential market for emulation (see their Wii's Virtual Console).
Except the DS to follow these trends and some future version starting to feature emulators with downloadable-over-Wifi legal ROMs from their online store (or sync-able with the home Wii).
In that circumstances, PDAs running emulators are in direct concurrence with their products.
And as such, any sexy feature that they add to their DS to make it more looking like a PDA, is one feature less that will encourage people to get PDAs/SmartPhone, and instead encourages them to stay with simplier featurephone running Java (and unable to run a decent emulator, at least for some time).
The whole may simply a defence to make players less compelled to buy a device that will on the long term, turn out to be competitor.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I once heard that in Korea they sell more Nintendo DS units than games for the DS. That would indicate that the majority of DS owners there would be buying it to play pirated games.
If Nintendo increases their profit per DS, then they make more money from everyone. There would be some lost sales due to the increase price.
This new version is definitely a method of staying ahead of the hackers. Nintendo knows they will never be able to stop people from running home brew and illegal ROMs. So the best thing they can do is bring new hardware to the market with new features and make the homebrew community start over. The DS is at the price point where people can pick one up on a whim, buy a R4 or another similar device, download some software and play for free. Nintendo doesn't make any royalties from pirated software...
And it could do a lot more than that:
http://www.pokezam.com/tcg/e-reader/
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I wonder how this fares in comparision to Open Pandora and similar devices. The only extra thing I could wish for with regards to the Pandora is some sort of 3G data connection so I wouldn't be tied down to WiFi for wireless connection, but, since the pandora has specific slots for soldering on your own mods I possibly could add it myself.
The idea of crossing a gameboy with a cellphone isn't exactly new, but so far noone has been making a serious attempt at it (N-Gage was more or less doomed from the beginning due to it's crappy input methods and other stupid design decisions). Will be interesting to see what happens next...
systemd is not an init system. It's a GNU replacement.
Enhancing the encryption will kill their old games too. The secret key for the copy protection is known; current generation flash cartridges authenticate in the exact same way as a Nintendo-produced cartridge would.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
It would not if they also had support for the old games, nothing say they don't have to support the old copy protection as well.
I guess future games for the system with new encryption wouldn't run on the old DS though, but it would be kind of a waste to introduce anything new anyway, and it would probably get broken some day again.
How could we not love it after watching you make it?
I've been seeing this rumour popping up on numerous sites since the beginning of the past week.
However, none of the sites say anything different and all pretty much spin the same yarn of a wierd, mutant SuperDSLite.
Frankly, I think it's dubious and I'm more to believe it's a case of journalistic rumour-mongering.
Anyway, we'll see what Thursday brings...
Personally, I'm thinking nothing much...
...throw in some PDA functionality like a working calendar with an alert/alarm functionality, note taking capabilities, calculator, and I'm instantly sold. I personally think that this is a platform capable of being used productively in the Business/IT environment.
I love my current DS, and would be happy to buy an upgrade and give the old one to my lady. I'm excited to see what can be done with the new wireless. And please build in an upgradable browser this time? The Opera cart for the current DS is really a joke.
A few other features I've love to see: Built in rumble, a micro SD slot for that new MP3 playing capability, Video this time perhaps?
That's actually in some battery-backed up SRAM - remove the battery and you'll see your DS reset to defaults (a good way to clear it before selling it).
The firmware actually saves the settings in flash. The only thing that's battery-backed is the a flags byte to tell if the settings are good. From GBATEK:
doesn't having any WEP access point up and running compromise the security of your network?
Not if it's turned off when not in use, or not if it connects only to the Internet and not to any other machines on your internal network.
But some games require a firmware update before you can play.
As I understand what I read on WiiBrew, the countermeasure against Twilight Hack was applied in Wii Menu 3.3. But the "system updates" on Game Discs are not updates to the Wii Menu. They are extra versions of the "IOS" kernel that runs on Starlet, the I/O processor on the GPU die. (Starlet is roughly comparable to the ARM7 core on the DS.) Each game requires a specific IOS version, and the discs come with the IOS version that the game uses and all the versions before it. Out of roughly six games that my cousins or I have tried, including Brawl and Mario Kart, I haven't seen any game that requires a Wii Menu upgrade. If Animal Crossing requires an upgrade past the 3.2 on my Wii, sparks will fly, and it will become time for some double crossing.
WEP + MAC filtering may be good enough, and it is what I used for the past 9 months. However, my work requires WPA2 w/ an AES key in order to use my laptop on my home wireless network.
"Your" laptop, or your company's laptop? Either way, does your work require you to use a single access point for both your Nintendo DS and your laptop? Keep the WEP one turned off when you're not playing Animal Crossing, and everything should be peachy at 500 bells eachy.
I don't think we'll see a DS refresh breaking any Slot-1 flashcarts, unless they also want to break compatibility with existing DS games.
Imagine the new DS taking a checksum of the ARM7 and ARM9 binaries from the inserted Game Card. The firmware has a list of the SHA-1 values of the first 3,000 or so releases. All releases after that are digitally signed with RSA in much the same way as DS Download Play clients and DS Download Station demos. So when the new DS loads a card, it'll take the SHA-1 as if it were a DS Download Play game. If it checks out against the signature, good. If the SHA-1 is on the whitelist, good. Otherwise, put "An Option Card is inserted" at the top of the touch screen instead of booting the card. Flash cards will fail to verify in exactly this way.
The RSA key for the DS has been known for a while now
GBATEK documents that while DS Download Play clients are signed, DS Game Cards are not. They use a different algorithm based on Blowfish, and this is what flash cards emulate. Adding RSA to new releases and whitelisting legacy releases would block flash cards from booting
The secret key for the copy protection is known
The Blowfish key is known. But the other key isn't, which could allow for the system that I described in another post.