The Real Deal on the Nintendo DSi XL

DOUG’S DILEMMA

Doug recently purchased a DSi with some leftover bonus money.  A longtime DS holdout, he finally decided to buy one so he could test out some of the great games he had been missing out on while commuting to and from work.  First it was last year’s re-release of Chrono Trigger, then it was the new Grand Theft Auto, but what ultimately won him over was the new DSiWare digital storefront.  He was happy with his purchase, thrilled even.

But that was a week ago.  Now, as he reads over the announcement of a brand new DSi – to be released in just a few short months – he senses a peculiar taste inside his mouth.  As he sits back and swashes it over, it dawns on him – it’s a flavor familiar to any tech-junkie: the unmistakable tang of bamboozle.

First the Nook ousts his Kindle, now this.  Once his stomach finishes quivering under the pangs of buyers remorse, he finds the to strength to read on a bit more.  Astonishingly, after just a few moments, he begins to wonder; is there even a reason to be upset?

A DSi DRAWS NEAR

The announcement Doug is referring to comes by way of the Nikkei news service, who also brought early word of the original DSi last September.

Industry followers ran with the assumption that this was the sequential 4th member of the DS lineage – succeeding the original DS (“Brick,” or “DS Phat” as its more affectionately called), DS Lite and DSi, the latter of which was released a mere 7 months ago on our shores.

Naturally, knee-jerk reactions from blogs across the web ranged from irritated to indignant.

The logic was sound.  For each of these previous successors had offered a modest, yet clear upgrade to its prior model.  Such has been the case for most of modern gaming, especially in the realm of portable consoles.  The gray-scale Game Boy was followed by the sharper and slimmer Game Boy Pocket, which was then followed by the fetching Game Boy Color.  Each new iteration tweaked the formula just enough to warrant the upgrade, while still maintaining a healthy buffer of two or more years between them.  So what gives, new DSi XL?

THE CHOICE TREND

Finally unveiled today, the DSi XL (or ‘LL’ as it will be called in Japan) indeed sports 2 (significantly) larger screens, comes housed in a new shade of stale crimson and… well, nothing else.  The device still has the same 2 cameras as the DSi, still plays the same software, and still omits the Game Boy Advance slot.  It just features two 4” screens as opposed to the twin 3.25” screens of the DSi.  Nothing more, nothing less.

The spin is that the DSi XL is for older players, grannies with glasses, and those who enjoy an audience over their shoulder shouting conflicting commands at their Nintendogs.  But such narrow terms limit the true finesse of the system.

Nintendo intends to position the DSi XL not as a linear upgrade to the DSi, but as an alternative.  It’s a tactic not all that far removed from offering up an assortment of colorways, standard for the company since the “Play it Loud” era of the mid-90’s.  (Shout out to my banana-yellow Game Boy buried in the back of the closet.  One of these days we gotta take a trip through Donkey Kong Land again for old times.)

What the DSi XL represents are the formative stages of a new trend not only in handhelds, but consoles in general.  With graphic fidelity reaching a plateau and retail models inching toward digital storefronts, the need for a brand new console once every 5 years is becoming outdated.  Instead, we are beginning to see more incremental alternatives, such as the PSP Go and the DSi, or the 120-gig and 250-gig PlayStation 3.  Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft are attempting to cultivate the same sort of option-based consumerism common to all major manufactures.

The DSi XL is simply the video game equivalent of the 50” plasma next to your current 32” LCD.  Some people, myself included, are happy with their 32” TV screens.  But others now have a choice whether they want a bigger viewing area (stretching out the image a bit) or a smaller device that retains portability.

Now that Doug has digested it all, he realizes he still likes his DSi very much.  It may not have the biggest screens, but he can still carry it in his pocket to and from work – and that’s genuinely why he purchased one in the first place.

But what about you, dear reader?  Do you find it comforting to know there are more choices out there beyond the linear platform models of old, or do you wish this whole branching trend would die a horrible, horrible death?  Let me know in the comments below.

Or don’t.

See, it’s all about choice people.

Image Courtesy of Nintendo Co. Ltd