Though a number of quality software titles were shown off at last week’s Nintendo Media Summit (stay tuned to GameCyte for daily previews!), the biggest news of the two-day event was revealed within the first ten minutes of the event: the Nintendo DSi hardware.
Spirited away by NOA President Reggie Fils-Aime just as quickly as it came, the sleek portable nontheless hung like a spectre over the proceedings. Unanswered questions lingered: When would it arrive? What software might we see? What exactly makes the unit’s wireless connection faster? Will it include measures to combat piracy? — and on, and on, and on.
Between some sleuthing at Siliconera and timely questions from Eurogamer, we have the first two answers.
Though Siliconera notes that the new Nintendo points are either Wii Points or DS Points, not both — a minor annoyance for those who would like to diversify their investment portfolios beyond Virtual Console and WiiWare — they have also discovered that Nintendo has trademarked the phrase “Nintendo Zone“ in the United States.
Back at E3, Nintendo’s Cammie Dunaway mentioned that the company was currently testing newfound DS functionality for airports and baseball games, among other things. This would seem to be confirmation that their US tests have been successful.
But not all is quite so rosy. You may already know that the DSi will no longer be able to play GBA software. Eurogamer has learned that it will not be able to play import DSi software either. While regular DS cartridges will continue to be region-free, all DSi-exclusives will be region locked to their country of origin.
Why?
Nintendo told Eurogamer this afternoon that DSi is region-locked “because DSi embeds net communication functionality within itself and we are intending to provide net services specifically tailored for each region”.
“Also because we are including parental control functionality for Nintendo DSi and each region has its unique age limit made by different independent bodies.”
While I will personally mourn the lost ability to import awesome new titles from Japan regardless of where I buy my hardware (like Dunaway herself, I rock an JDM Ice Blue DS Lite) if this new “net functionality” and “parental control” add up to a decent alternative to friend codes, I’m all for it.
Leave a Reply