PSP World

Does the Nintendo DSi Provide Competiton for Sony?

Nintendo today announced a successor to the current generation of DS hardware, called the DSi. Rather than a complete step forward, the DSi is more of a half-step. It adds two .3 megapixel cameras (facing toward and away from the player), a slightly larger screen and support for SD card storage. It will also be able to download WiiWare purchases, play multimedia files, and surf the net using an on-board Opera browser. The guts of the machine remain exactly the same as the old DS, although the workhorse processor and graphics chips are now able to fit in a slightly slimmer case. Nintendo fans are understandably excited that their beloved handheld is getting a significant upgrade, but does this new hardware revision fire a warning shot over Sony's bow?

The Nintendo DSi adds two cameras, multimedia functionality, and a more robust menu navigation system that closely resembles Sony's XMB.

On one hand, Sony's PSP already contains many of the new features added to the DSi. Expandable Pro Duo memory cards provide up to 16 gb of storage for the PSP, easily accomodating music, video and game files. Thanks to Sony's firmware updates, the PSP supports a wide array of file types, and includes a competent web browser and RSS reader. While the DSi screens are a bit larger than the previous version, we still don't know anything about their resolution, and the new high-contrast display on the upcoming PSP brite is more than enough to keep handheld gamers satisfied. The DSi will retail in Japan for the more serious price of $180, putting it within reach of a potential Sony price drop.

There are some areas where the DSi could outshine the existing PSP hardware. The implemenation of two cameras is certainly an interesting choice, and one that could provide some new and exciting gameplay possibilities. Sony has experimented with a camera add-on, but so far very few applications have taken advantage of the hardware, and the camera is not available in North America. Make no mistake, we won't be taking stunning landscape portraits with the tiny .3 megapixel sensor on the DS, but it should work well for games and even for video communication. The second area where the DSi might surprise us is the WiiWare integration promised by Nintendo. Sony has announced plans to link the PSP more conveniently with the PSN, but so far we don't know exactly what that will look like. If Nintendo can deliver seamless access to the Wii Shop Channel through the DS, that would be quite an achievement.

What are your thoughts on the new DSi hardware? Let us know in the forums!