So I've had my DSi since it launched down here. I wasn't going to get one at first, I was quite content with my DS Lite and there was not much that appealed to me about the DSi at first. When you just glance at the new features the DSi brings to the table there was nothing that really appealed to me. Cameras where meh as I already had one on my phone. Music playback, well thats what my mp3 player is for. As for DSiWare which was the most interesting thing for me, the launch line up was not really overly appealing to me. Then the launch week came and I thought stuff it I'll get one. So I traded in my DS Lite and a few games that I no longer played (Golden Eye Rogue Agent, Zoo Tycoon, Mario 64 DS, Asphalt and Metroid Prime Hunters I think) and got myself a DSi. My immediate impressions on the system where great, it felt good and I really liked the new matte finish, felt odd at first but I've really come to like it. The size of the system also just felt better then that of the DS Lite and for something like a handheld system the overall feel of it is rather important.



It wasn’t jus the form factor that made the DSi feel better then its predecessor the DS Lite.  On the firmware side, things were a lot better. You could now take out DS cards while at the main menu without having to turn the system off. If you wished to play a different game while you were already playing one just hit the power button and it would take you back to the DSi menu. However as cool as this stuff was, its not going to sell the system to someone let alone convince them that the system is worth the extra cash they would need to put down on it.
 


The main selling points for the DSi are the camera and the DSiWare games at this stage, The camera while not really made for the so called “Hardcore” gamers I can imagine the “Casuals” eating it up. As I have shown in my previous blog I have found some fun to be had with the camera but that stuff will get old rather quickly I imagine. I find it odd that Nintendo did not do that with the DSi as they did with the Wii in that each system has its only friend code and you can send messages to each other. Would have been a great thing to be able to take a photo and then send off the photo to a friend. Maybe something in a future Firmware update will make this a possibility.
 


The main selling point for myself with the DSi for me though is the DSiWare. Thus far the DSiWare has been a real mixed bag, you have a lot of trash like the various clocks and calculators on it, which would be fine despite the fact that they want us to pay for them, to really good stuff like the Art Style games. I’ve got six DSi games so far, Aquite, Pictopict, Boxlife, Kubos, A Little Bit of Dr Mario & A Little Bit of Planet Puzzle League. Now these are all good games and anyone owning a DSi needs to get Boxlife, but the one problem with them is variety, they are all puzzle games.
 


Now don’t get me wrong, puzzle games and handheld gaming go hand in hand and its been that way every since the dawn of the hand era with the Game Boy. But the Game Boy also had other titles at launch like Super Mario Land, Tennis and so on to go with Tetris. True DSiWare does have some other stuff on there like Asphalt 4 & Real Soccer 2009, to shake up the endless wave of Puzzle games, as I have played neither I can’t speak for their quality. Its been over 3 months since the launch and we still don’t have anything on DSiWare that I would call a system seller. Mario vs Donkey Kong 3 is the closest thing to that at this stage (alas that game is yet to come out in the humble PAL regions as of yet but we live in hope).
 


The thing is for a lot of gamers it’s the games on the system that make us want to buy it and thus far there is not much on the DSi for a lot of gamers to give up their DS Lite for a DSi. Its a real shame that developers have not really started to make use of the DSi’s features yet. The DSi has more power under its hood then the DS but I’ve yet to see a game that takes advantage. To be fair however if I was a developer I wouldn’t be making games that could only be played on the DSi at this stage. The amount of DS’s out there in the world would just make making a DSi only game at this stage way too stupid.
 


I’ve always looked at the jump from DS to DSi as kinda like a halfway point between the jump from the Game Boy to Game Boy Color and the Game Boy Advance to the Game Boy micro. With the Game Boy Color you had an awesome system with the same functionality as the original Game Boy and then a whole lot of extras on top of it. There was no question if you should get a GBC over a GB you just did. With the Game Boy micro what you had was an upgrade in the look of the system at the expense of features like backwards compatibility. The jump to the DSi should have been as big as the jump the Game Boy Color, but it falls way short of being something people want. I guess its different in that the Game Boy Color bought something we had been craving for the Game Boy for years, the DSi on the other hand I don’t think anyone was really asking for more power or 2 cameras. Which brings me back to the point of DSiWare and why it is soo important to the future of the DSi.
 


Nintendo should really be pushing DSiWare to be the main focus of the DSi experience. We should be seeing lots of AAA quality titles on the service to give people a reason to own a DSi. There are some really good DSiWare games as I said before, but they are only puzzle games and even though I am a huge fan of puzzle games I think the days of seeing puzzle games selling a handheld system are long behind us. I’m hoping that we do see a Virtual Console added to the DSi sooner rather then later as I think something like that would get a lot of interest in the DSi. Another thing I would like to see Nintendo do would maybe bring some of the older DS games to DSiWare, stuff like Polarium, Yoshi Touch and Go, Meteos or Kirby Canvas Curse. Would be a great way for people who missed out on some of the older DS games a chance to play catch up.
 


Something it looks like we are seeing more of on DSiWare if Japan is any indication is older DS games being broken down into smaller bite sized chucks. Japan has just had Electroplankton broken down into smaller sized portions for DSiWare. Also just came out for DSiWare (for us PAL areas at least anyway) is A Little Bit of Planet Puzzle League, which is great for someone like me who never got around to owning the original one. I would love it if other publishers would go this route on DSiWare, maybe if its too risky to release something like Retro Game Challenge 2 as a stand alone title, how about release it as episodic content on DSiWare, would make a lot more sense then releasing it in store I guess.
 


All I really want to see at the end of the day is good games. I will spend my money on them, they just need to give me a reason to do so. It’s a shame looking at the DSi right now as I can see sooo much potential in it what with the DSi Store, system memory, SD card slot, Camera, all of it. They could be doing soo much more right now then what they are. I’m not saying these past 3 months have been bad for the DSi. Do I regret buying a DSi, hell no, I’ve had lots of fun on it the Art Style games are amazing. But that’s me and I’m a guess I am a hardcore gamer when it comes to all things handheld. But I still find it hard to recommend to other people to get a DSi at this stage. There is no point right now, I’m hoping things may change sooner rather then later. I’m hoping the DSi becomes the awesome system it can be and not just the norm cause Nintendo is phasing out the DS Lite. I still don’t think that the DSi justifies the higher price point at this stage, hopefully things will change.