Nintendo has a DS Lite "Lite" redesign ready to go?
By Paul Miller 
posted November 15th 2007 9:30AM
posted November 15th 2007 9:30AM
According to at least one analyst, Nintendo's not just resting on its laurels while the DS Lite produces incomprehensible piles of cash. Evan Wilson, an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities, got word from his inside source that a DS redesign is actually already done, and Nintendo's just waiting around for DS Lite sales to cool off a bit -- which, unfortunately for those pining for new hardware, doesn't seem to be happening just yet. The redesign, which has been rumored before, supposedly is thinner thanks to the absence of a Game Boy Advance port, includes a larger screen and rocks some built-in storage, which we imagine could have some great uses in the right hands. Obviously, Nintendo's Game Boy Advance only made it through three hardware iterations, which begs the question of when we'll see a brand new handheld platform from Nintendo, though we can't say we'd blame them for sticking to this generation for another couple years of insane wealth and staggering stock price.
i know you already have wifi stuff on DS, i meant more like, internet browser built in. i sounded pretty stupid there
Hmmmmm... doesn't the DS use its GBA slot for peripherals?
You guys comparing the removal of GBA support from this design to the removal of backwards compatibility from PS3 are way off the mark. Most of the hardware in the GBA is available to the DS and therefore can't be removed. What that means is that removing GBA compatibility isn't going to make the platform cheaper, it's just going to make it slightly thinner. And remove compatibility with various add-ons too.
PS3 removed backwards compatibility with PS2 on its lowest end model as a desperate cost cutting measure only. Sony needed to do something to get PS3 into people's hands for less and since they've stretched themselves so thin on the production costs of their technology they had to make an actual sacrifice.
On the other hand, having to use a real PS2 in addition to a PS3 is much less of a big deal than having to use a GBA in conjunction with a DS. For all of you suggesting this think about it a little more clearly. The entire point of removing the cartridge slot is to make this version of the DS slightly slimmer and nothing else (probably marketting, because "small is good", regardless of what you lose in the process). So how is it worth it if you're going to have to lug around a GBA, which will clearly add more bulk than is saved by the removal of the DS's slot 2?
I wouldn't count on the ability to play GBA games via download either. For DS to work in GBA mode there must be something physically occupying the pins of the cartridge port, which are now gone. You can't map it to the high capacity flash storage they'll be using because it isn't going to let you directly address it (which is why DS games have to be loaded into its 4MB of RAM). Don't even mention GBA emulation on DS, it's out of the question. DS isn't powerful enough. The only way DS could get around this is to put extra RAM on that bus like some flash carts do (the ones that interface with SD cards). I doubt they'll be doing this because they would have probably advertised an extra 32MB of RAM in some way.
I don't really know how that extra memory will be available at all. Probably as a separate block device that can be accessed in addition to the main one. That would mean you can't run DS games on it either, although Nintendo could perhaps come up with something to allow this.
But afterall who cares about GBA, it's just some 10 year old handheld right? Actually, GBA is like 7 years old and many very popular games were being released as recently as 2006 (with a few in 2007).
I have a DS Lite. Never played a GBA game on it nor do I care to ever play a GBA game on it. Bring on the DS Slim!
"I already have a DS Lite and until now would have defended it to the death had anyone said anything was wrong with it, but Nintendo says I'd be better off with a new one, and even though I don't yet know what it actually really has to offer I must say I'm inclined to agree. Where should I send my money to?"