I can appreciate that Nintendo feels pretty confident that their new DSi system, coming to the US in April, will sell out come the end of the year. But it also sounds kind of overconfident to me. Of course, they're still selling like crazy in Japan, and their other two systems here are, too. There's no stopping Nintendo, I guess.

In an interview with TimesOnline, Nintendo UK general manager David Yarnton says that buying early will save you this holiday:

I always advise people to buy early. One of the things that people don’t seem to understand is that factories are producing constantly; they don’t peak and trough. So we’re producing product all the time, but then everyone wants it all at the one end of the year. It’s just so hard to try and keep up. 

In the same interview, when asked about piracy and compatibility with the R4 device, Yarnton mentions firmware updates as a security step.

The DSi has a number of enhancements to built-in security. There’s firmware that we can upgrade, to try and keep one step ahead at all times.

Great. Now I'll have five game systems constantly connecting to the internet, interrupting my game play.