14 DAY TRIAL // Even when it was in the rumor stage, the launch of the highly awaited Nintendo DS upgrade, the DSi, was subject to claims that Nintendo was finally taking the fight to Apple and Sony. The iPhone and PlayStation Portable respectively are provided with features that do not exist on the normal DS. Recently, speaking with Nikkei Net, the website that got the rumor of the DSi out, Nintendo president, Satoru Iwata, commented on his company's new creation.
“We wanted users to have the device on them at all times,” he stated. “By downloading subway maps and other things, for instance, the DSi can be useful for applications other than playing games. We wanted to create an offering that would fit naturally into people's everyday lives.”
And so they did. For those of you who don't know, the new iteration of the immensely popular DS handheld, the DSi, brings several new features which were unheard of on Nintendo products. These consist of things like a camera, music playback capability or the improved wireless capabilities, hinting to the fact that the DSi would take on its main handheld competitor, the PlayStation Portable, and would even be a rival to Apple's iPhone. Although lacking the phone aspects of Apple's device, the DSi was considered as something that would take a swing at the popularity of the iPhone.
Iwata also stated that, although the new version of the DS would hit the Japanese market in November, the European and North American markets would receive it sometime in 2009. But it really depends on how the DSi would sell on the local markets.
All in all, the DSi doesn't seem, in my opinion, a device that could take on the iPhone: without all the other capabilities of the handheld, it doesn't stand a chance.