News: Nintendo announces the new Nintendo DS OMG; "bleach" is released

January 26, 2006, 01:04 AM

by tim, via nintendo of japan -
[permalink]

it really looks like an iPod. Nintendo has shocked the world once again, by announcing that they will release a smaller version of their one-year-old handheld gaming machine with a precious few of the features people wanted from the start tacked on. They call this new one the "Nintendo DS lite." Nintendo's press release says, "'Light' is an English word meaning 'light' and 'light.'" Wait, actually, that doesn't work so well in English!

Next paragraph: the machine will be thinner, lighter, and brighter than the original DS, which is, yes, currently still sold out all over Japan. The unit will apparently have four brightness settings, and refined buttons. Now, if it also has fixed screen ratios for GBA games, and if it offers you the ability to map the GBA's L and R buttons to the DS's X and Y buttons, we'll be onto something. My guess is that it will indeed allow such remapping -- however, configuration of the DS's four buttons so that Y acts as a GBA's B and B acts as a GBA's A (which would make Super Mario Bros. 3 actually playable on the handheld), will have to wait for the Nintendo DS lite SP micro edition (or this ~BS).

Nintendo's press release does not indicate that Gameboy Advance game compatibility will be dropped, as many had been whispering. In fact, it says that "all of the DS's unique functions will remain intact." This is Japanese market-speak for "we didn't take anything away." Example: when you're looking for an apartment in Tokyo, if the apartment has a gas stove (as it should) the real estate classifieds listings will say nothing about it. If it doesn't have a gas stove, the top of the ad will exclaim proudly, "Compatible with gas stove!" Another example: Konami once released Contra Spirits on Gameboy Advance; it was a horribly neutered port, missing most of the fun and the two-player simultaneous function. A big red burst on the front of the Japanese box read "EXCLUSIVE ONE-PLAYER ACTION!!" So there you have it. That is how professionals accentuate the negative.

I personally welcome the new DS, as long as it's at least as bright as the ultra-bright GBA SP2. I don't even mind that the thing looks like an iPod (I mean, I'm going with my gut and saying they went with the exact same designers who did the Revolution controller -- and the iPod). I just really hope they announce a red one, because that's what I'll get. And I'll look so sophisticated! My old DS makes me look like a dude who's hip with pop-culture (only in Japan), and this new one will make us all look like egg-drinking power-stock-brokers. While playing cavia's Dragon Ball Z against the schoolkids across the train and muttering curses occasionally.

The Nintendo DS lite goes on sale (in Japan) on March 2nd, for 16,800 yen (about $150). I have resolved to buy one of these, and sell my old DS cheap to a friend. Nintendo's current entrepreneurlike business strategies have inspired me. You can read more about Nintendo's current success in an article I wrote here. If the lead-in advertisement doesn't jinx you.

i personally don't like the manga. the guy's name is 'ichigo,' though, which is kind of cool.Also, to commemorate this announcement (?), Treasure and Sega have released their Bleach for DS today. I'm going to Akihabara to buy it in just forty minutes. I tingle! Famitsu gave it an 8, 7, 8, 8, which is fitting, because anime/manga fans don't care about review scores (or else Bandai would be bankrupt by now), and Treasure fans would never buy a game that a mainstream publication scored a "9," anyway. It's a lot like Treasure's YuYu Hakusho for MegaDrive, a favorite game for hardcore gamers everywhere to pretend to have played!! Consider this research, and do it!! They could totally release this in America as "Bleach: Dong Slasher." WANKING