Nintendo's DSi gets unboxed nice and early

If you can't stand waiting till Summer 2009, and you don't live in Japan, it's your lucky day. We've uncovered an unboxing of Nintendo's new DSi which should thoroughly whet your appetite (though whether that will hold you over for a whole eight months is another story). If you follow the read link you'll discover a plethora of photos of the packaging and device, including some pretty nice macro shots of all the slots, ports, and LEDs. We've included a couple of pics after the break, but if you're a stickler for details, you'll want to take a gander at the whole set.

[Thanks, Waroxy Future]

[Knives_Out @ Oct 31st 2008 4:34PM]

you da man!!

[Derry Quinn @ Oct 31st 2008 4:36PM]

ROFL NO WAI!!!

OMGWTFBBQ!!!

*sigh* sometimes I hate engadget.

[somebody7 @ Oct 31st 2008 4:40PM]

Douchebag

[Shoumik @ Oct 31st 2008 4:42PM]

Judging from the shots, I'm guessing they're fake. Plus the 69th pixel from the right is inverted.

[AlDeezy @ Oct 31st 2008 4:42PM]

Can't wait to get the new Ds, look good enough for my money.

God Bless you Ray. ;0

[idiot @ Oct 31st 2008 4:45PM]

spam

[Matthew Hilario @ Oct 31st 2008 4:45PM]

[::[_]::]
[+[_]::]

[Phoenix @ Oct 31st 2008 4:55PM]

Well played, that man!

[Nick @ Oct 31st 2008 8:42PM]

(+.[___]·:·)

:D

[GenBanks @ Oct 31st 2008 4:52PM]

That's actually George W., passing the time until he's finished with the presidency :)

[Jeff @ Oct 31st 2008 4:57PM]

For those needing to know, your homebrew flashcards don't work in it.

[Eric @ Oct 31st 2008 5:08PM]

Damn. And it's region locked too. I hate that. :(

[Link2877 @ Oct 31st 2008 6:13PM]

Don't worry about the region lock considering this thing now has a SD slot built in now, it will only be a matter of time before it's hacked.

I give it a good month maybe.

[Plothole @ Oct 31st 2008 8:57PM]

Where does it say there's a region lock?

[Rodrigo Tjäder @ Oct 31st 2008 5:16PM]

The link is a page translated from Japanese, but the original seems to be Chinese, so http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fnds.tgbus.com%2Fnews%2Fdsi%2F200810%2F20081031134816.shtml&sl=zh&tl=en&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 translates better.

[RyogaHibiki @ Oct 31st 2008 5:16PM]

And it won't play MP3's...only AAC files. lame.

[Patriks7 @ Oct 31st 2008 6:10PM]

No, it won't play LAME either..

[tekdroid @ Oct 31st 2008 8:57PM]

http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/hardware.html
Everything makes sense when you consider royalties that need to be payed. Consider that they'll be selling millions of these, easily. Millions to go in their pocket or to someone else's?

of course I know which I'd choose
http://www.vorbis.com
http://flac.sourceforge.net

[Giroro @ Nov 1st 2008 3:01PM]

I have 0 songs in AAC, and I'm too lazy to convert them.

I'm confused why it's not .mp3, it's sort of the current standard.

[RyogaHibiki @ Nov 1st 2008 4:00PM]

Yeah, there are royalties Nintendo would have to pay for MP3 codecs, but Nintendo is making huge profits now on their Wii and DS properties and the fact they are pinching their pennies at the cost of annoying their customers makes they look really cheap. Shame on you Nintendo, I won't be buying a DSi.

[tekdroid @ Nov 1st 2008 8:09PM]

RyogaHibiki,
We need to ween ourselves off MP3 and those ridiculous royalties (fwiw, if I were Nintendo I'd absolutely doing the same without any hesitation). Fact is there are better formats out there, including Ogg Vorbis and FLAC, in addition to AAC, that not only go much further technically, but both Ogg Vorbis and FLAC are royalty-free. AAC I see as not ideal (open source formats would be), but still far better than MP3.

Anyway...
The device wasn't really meant to replace your phone/iPod/Walkman anyway, and if Nintendo continue with their generally noisy and poorly-isolated headphone outputs, I'd fail to see how MP3 support could be a real selling point in this device, really. Sony's PSP is how a quality portable audio device should sound. With Nintendo, the audio path has always been an afterthought, and I'd expect the same this time 'round.


In any case, saving millions of dollars (either directly or through savings by not incorporating chips that use MP3 codecs), is a very sane move that I would definitely regard more than just 'pinching pennies'. They are a real business and should not support things that can make them lose millions of dollars all for little gain. Even convergence has sensible, real-world limits.

[MarkS @ Oct 31st 2008 5:23PM]

For the Endaget tech team, a gift for you:

if ($comment_num = "1" AND ($comment_text contains "first")) {
print "Sorry, the first post may not contain the word 'first.'";
} else {
print "Thank you for not being a tool.";
}

[gonintendo @ Oct 31st 2008 5:41PM]

iDS

[htd @ Oct 31st 2008 6:02PM]

one cam seems useful for chatting, no idea why they put the 2nd one on the cover...

[Patriks7 @ Oct 31st 2008 6:09PM]

So that you can "secretly" spy on the chicks around you.. you know you hold it up pretending to play a game or something, when in reality you're taking pictures or filming.. :P

[Link2877 @ Oct 31st 2008 6:23PM]

@Patriks7

lol you know what I have no doubt that this will be one of the first things a whole bunch of the guys that first buy it in japan will do while on the train back home. lol :)

[Das Boot @ Nov 3rd 2008 1:21PM]

@ patrick,

as a professional stalker, i totally agree with your comment. imagine, u can be at starbucks or wherever scoping out a hot broad. " oh yeah, peach, you eat that mushroom."

[Patriks7 @ Oct 31st 2008 6:11PM]

Is it me or has "Lowest rank" recently returned?

[TubeTop100.com @ Oct 31st 2008 6:20PM]

Ahhh scheisse, you beat me to it.

Now I have to F5 Engadget until the next post is up, with FIRSTTTTTT under my Ctrl+V

[TubeTop100.com @ Oct 31st 2008 6:23PM]

I love the watermarking on the right bottom of the images. Is one logo enough? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[Patriks7 @ Oct 31st 2008 6:32PM]

Have you ever thought that those two things are their one logo?

[TubeTop100.com @ Oct 31st 2008 6:34PM]

Yeah, because they didn't add a WHOPPING 500 of those two thingies on their images.

Thanks!

[kastonie @ Oct 31st 2008 6:38PM]

"fingers on the back of charge and whether the Chinese system remain unanswered"

I see.....

I also love the links to the asian porn sites that a poorly translated into english....

[eddy @ Oct 31st 2008 7:16PM]

Interesting to see that Nintendo's gone back to a power button (as the original DS had, but not quite the same placement) instead of the switch on the side. Curious why they'd do that.

[Peter @ Oct 31st 2008 7:32PM]

So instead of it accidentally turning on in your pocket, you accidentally turn it off while playing

[tekdroid @ Nov 1st 2008 7:15AM]

I'm guessing that you'd have to press it for a second or more for it to turn off. Perhaps someone can report on that.

[FRZ @ Oct 31st 2008 8:18PM]

They are seriously being cheap with the screen size.

[gonintendo @ Oct 31st 2008 8:48PM]

Not at that resolution.

[Blake @ Oct 31st 2008 9:24PM]

I love it

[soundcircus @ Nov 1st 2008 8:54AM]

I was gonna get one of these. As i've just brought a second hand Gameboy Advance SP of eBay with three Jap import games. I also have a Sony PSP 2000, but i love the whole clamshell design of the Advance... Less damage on it's self when i'm out and about... no knocks to the screen etc. So when i saw the new DSi i thought i'd give Nintendos new system a try...BUT region locked, won't play Gameboy Advance games, frigging cameras on it! (i hate it that games consoles are turning into mobile phones multi life style systems) Shame on you Nintendo you just lost a sale.

[Tom G @ Nov 1st 2008 11:25AM]

You must have been realllllly enjoying the SP to never have noticed the previous little version of the DSi that has everything you just asked for...

[Phoenix @ Nov 1st 2008 10:09AM]

Buy a friggin DS Lite then!

[soundcircus @ Nov 1st 2008 10:18AM]

Wooo... Handbags!

[soundcircus @ Nov 1st 2008 11:41AM]

Well no Tom G your kinda wrong there. I've had the SP for about a week. And so have noticed the DS before... i was gonna buy one last year... but chose the PSP instead. Never been much of a Nintendo fanboy. Just like the 'fold' design of the SP that made me wonder about getting the newer DS.

[Nick @ Nov 1st 2008 8:28PM]

Dude, all you're thinking about is, "Gawd, I wish it wasn't like a cellphone." What you are forgetting in all of your multi life style hating is that the camera has amazing potential as another input device for games. Depending on camera resolution and how it's interfaced with the device (i.e. whether it's made available as an accessible input device for programmers) you might be able to interact with games by making a hand gesture or take a picture of yourself and put it on the face of your character. With the addition of an SD slot as potential additional storage for DS games, the possibilities really are pretty much limited only by the developer's imagination.

[Phoenix @ Nov 1st 2008 12:59PM]

Then buy the lite.

It's exactly what you just said you wanted

[soundcircus @ Nov 1st 2008 4:57PM]

You know Phoenix i think i might just do that ;)

[Joel @ Nov 1st 2008 7:42PM]

F1rst!
Fir5t!
F1rs7!
1st!
Ist!

What are we going to have next, a 'first' black list?

[Steven @ Nov 2nd 2008 4:17PM]

So what exactly happens to those peripherals that use the GBA slot? What about games that use the GBA slot to import characters in DS games from GBA carts?

[Mega 777 @ Nov 3rd 2008 1:21PM]

Yeah but still, what about those people who don't have GBA games
or grew tired of them,