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Nintendo Announces DSi XL
lbalbalba writes "This morning, Nintendo announced the third upgrade to the DS family, the DSi LL (or DSi XL). It will be released in Japan on November 21, one year after the DSi debuted, for ¥20,000 (approx. $220). The LL's main improvement is the size of its screens, which have been increased from 3.25" to 4.2" with a moderate increase to the size of the chassis. The device also includes a much bigger stylus, which looks to be the size of a ballpoint pen, and battery life has reportedly been increased to five hours at maximum screen brightness."
I'm wondering where the demand for this was? It's not like they're increasing the resolution and now the DS size history has gone from its original size, shrunk down to the Lite version, then the DSi came out which was comparable to the Lite, and now they're making it larger than the original DS with the XL.
But Nintendo usually knows what they're doing, as long as they don't color it red and require it be strapped to your face, that is.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
Nintendo has been trying to broaden its market with handhelds the same way that they have with the Wii. Games like brain age, professor layton and the Personal Trainer series appeal to and older crowd but the small screen size can make it rather limited. My mother for instance loves her DS but constantly complains about the text being too small or icons being indistinguishable, a larger screen size would be great for her. Based on the included bundle that appears to be the audience they are going for...smart idea IMHO.
You jest, but that's exactly right.
The target market for this DS is big and growing. Older people (parents, etc) find the current DS line with screens that are too small - now Nintendo sees a huge market for large screens and less agile hands.
Nintendo's no longer just a "kiddy" company - their products are aimed at everyone, particularly non-gamers. Nintendo might not win the console wars, but they'll infiltrate the homes of everyone else.
Not really though. Backwards compatibility is key for portable games. For example the Game Boy Advance SP had perhaps the largest library for any portable game console. The GBA SP (along with the first GBA) could play games from 1989 to 2007. Few consoles can play 18 years of games without any emulation. And when the games are cheap ($30 when they were new, and you can get them for $10 max used) that gives the average person a huge game library without much initial investment. Even though Super Mario Land wasn't exactly the most advanced games, no was it that long but it still was fun. Now Nintendo has the DS (and Lite) that can play games from 2001-present and the DSi that can play physical games from 2004-present along with downloadable games. A major new console would more than likely change the hardware in a radical way, if you don't have either 2 screens or don't have one as a touch screen the DS games are nearly unplayable. Without a large back catalog they probably won't gain much traction (just look at how much of a failure the PSP Go is since it doesn't have a UMD drive).
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.