Fail: DSi prototype did have a GBA slot, removed due to size

1:24 PM on 10.30.2008   |   Dale North

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One of the primary complaints people have of Nintendo's new portable, the DSi, is that the Game Boy Advance slot was removed. Aside from removing the ability to play the huge library of GBA games, it also prohibits the use of many nifty Slot 1 devices.  Now we hear that a DSi prototype had the GBA slot included, but it was yanked due to size reasons. D'oh!

AndriaSang gives us the English version of the latest "The CEO Asks" column from Nintendo's Japanese page Touch-DS. This session had Nintendo president Satoru Iwata asking employees  Yui Ehara, Kentaro Santa, and Masato Kawabara, all members of Nintendo's technology division, questions on the DSi. 

It turns out that the DSi originally had both slots, as Iwata felt that this was important to customers and Nintendo employees. The tech team created a prototype based on this. After getting his hands on this prototype, Iwata felt that it was too big. Kubawara said that it was 3mm larger than the final DSi.

The decision was then made to give up on the double slot and make the system smaller. This was apparently no easy task. When the design was first shown to the producers, the internal plans had already been decided upon and testing had already been done. It was as if the system was in a ready state for production. Having to resize the system, said Iwata, was basically the same as making two systems.

Ah, so close! Small is in, so I see where they're coming from. But I'm really going to miss my GBA slot. 

The rest of the interview is quite interesting. The talk about the system's beginnings, which were planned as early as 2006. They also talk about some of the lesser known new features, like the ability to hit the power button to take you back to the DSi main menu.