My Take Radio

Nintendo’s new DSi XL

Yes­ter­day, Nin­tendo pulled out the good ol’ beat you in the head stick and released another win­ner in the Nin­tendo DSi XL. The fourth incar­na­tion of Nintendo’s dual-screened hand­held is for the most part just a giant sized DSi, but it is a lit­tle bit more. For $20 more than the DSi, it had bet­ter be. Let me start with the bad and get that out of the way. Being a long time gamer and long time Nin­tendo fan, it was dis­ap­point­ing when the orig­i­nal DS came out and we learned that it would not sup­port Game Boy games. When the portable dropped it’s orig­i­nal “tank” con­fig­u­ra­tion and became the DS Lite, peo­ple were happy that it fit in their pock­ets and that it still had the GBA slot. Last year, the portable “evolved” into the DSi and it gained two cam­eras, inter­net access and an SD card slot along with a new UI which was rem­i­nis­cent of the Wii menu. This evo­lu­tion involved the com­plete loss of any Game Boy com­pat­i­bil­ity. The DSi XL, while larger than the DSi or Lite, still does not show the Game Boy or Game Boy Advance any love and this really sucks for some­one who may have a large col­lec­tion of those older games. One would find this excep­tion­ally strange from a finan­cial stand­point because of the con­tin­ued suc­cess of the title Poké­mon. Not one, not two, but five Nin­tendo DS titles with the Poké­mon name have a sig­nif­i­cant attach­ment to the Game Boy Advance. The Dia­mond, Pearl, Plat­inum, Heart­Gold and Soul­Sil­ver ver­sions of the game all fea­ture an area in their game world called the Pal Park, which allows the player to plug in the GBA titles Poké­mon Ruby, Sap­phire, Emer­ald, Fir­eRed and Leaf­Green in order to send pocket mon­sters from those games to the DS games. To me, the move makes no sense, but it is what it is.

Lit­er­ally, that is the only bad thing about the new portable and for some it will be impos­si­ble to get past. Nin­tendo how­ever, is always look­ing to expand and reach new audi­ences, and this is a good way to do it. The XL screens are 93% larger than pre­vi­ous DSLite and DSi screens. This is a great way to reach the older audi­ence that may or may not have trou­ble read­ing small text. Even for those who had no trou­ble with the smaller screens, the new screens are def­i­nitely wel­come. With larger and brighter images, bet­ter sound due to larger speak­ers and the new pen sized sty­lus, the DSi XL is def­i­nitely more adult than its pre­de­ces­sors. It is bet­ter for larger hands and feels more com­fort­able. The SD card slot will give it both media player and e-reader func­tion­al­ity. The voice recorder lets you take notes on the go and the old school method of giv­ing the con­sumer free games is def­i­nitely not going to turn any­one away from it.

Bot­tom line is that if you have never held a DS, the XL is the first one that should buy. If you started with a Game Boy, I hope that you have a work­ing GBA and/or Nin­tendo DS or DS Lite if you plan to buy this newer model. The new fea­tures are def­i­nitely worth the money con­sid­er­ing the orig­i­nal DSi is only $20 less, but it may be harder for own­ers of the older hand­helds to embrace this one. I still think that every Nin­tendo fan owes it to them­selves to at least expe­ri­ence the XL and then decide for themselves.