Ask Joystiq Nintendo: Demonstrative Edition

This week on Ask Joystiq Nintendo, we have just one question to answer as we prepare for E3. Next week, we'll be at E3, so we're taking a brief one-week hiatus from your questions. Hopefully E3 will answer every possible question you could come up with... right? Right?

We didn't think the subject of this week's question was confusing until we started to answer it, and then it got kind of confusing. If you have a question for two weeks from now, send it into asknintendo AT joystiq DOT com. On to the question of the week!

Simon Belmont asks:

I just wanted to find out are people with the DS basically out of luck when it comes to downloading demos? Is Nintendo pretty much going to allow people that invested in the DS Lite have to buy the DSi in order to take advantage of some of these new online features? Can DS Lite people get a little love?

When you look at it from an outside perspective (i.e. someone who has, perhaps, been in the late 17th century wandering through castles), it can be a bit hard to parse. The DSi can download things that the DS Lite can't, but the DS Lite can still download things. Both the DS Lite and the DSi (and the DS Phat as well, for that matter) can download demos, through download points in stores, or by sending them through the Wii's Nintendo Channel. Which means that DS Lite owners aren't out of luck re: demos ... unless, say, they don't have a Wii.

What the DSi has that the Lite doesn't is DSiWare, which differs from demos. DSiWare downloads are full downloadable games or applications. This is the major difference between the DSi and previous models, and there are no known plans to bring this service to the previous models.

Here's where it gets kind of confusing. Some of Nintendo's DSiWare games are tiny versions of existing cartridge games -- like selections card games out of Clubhouse Games. These could be considered "demos," but they're intended as standalone products and sold for five bucks.

Every week, we'll answer reader questions about the Wii, the DS, or any other Nintendo-related topic in Ask Joystiq Nintendo. If you have a question, e-mail it to asknintendo AT joystiq DOT com! You need your questions answered, and we need content for this column. It's a symbiotic relationship!