Nintendo DSi

The Nintendo DSi is a handheld game console produced by Nintendo. Released globally between late 2008 and early 2009, it served as the third major iteration of the wildly successful Nintendo DS family. While the previous DS Lite was purely a cosmetic and ergonomic refinement, the DSi represented a massive internal overhaul. It bridged the gap between the traditional cartridge era and the modern digital age, transforming the DS from a simple game player into a personalized, multimedia smart device.

Core Concept

The philosophy behind the DSi was personalization. Nintendo wanted the console to feel like your unique device, drawing heavy inspiration from the booming smartphone market and their own wildly successful Wii console. To achieve this, the DSi introduced an internal operating system featuring a customizable tile-based menu. For the first time on a Nintendo handheld, you could download digital applications, take photos, record audio, and store it all directly on the device or an SD card.

Hardware and Features

The DSi introduced several groundbreaking features to the handheld line, though it came with one highly controversial sacrifice:

• Dual Cameras: The most prominent new feature. The DSi featured two 0.3-megapixel cameras—one on the outer shell and one on the inside hinge facing the player. The built-in DSi Camera app wasn’t just for taking low-res photos; it included a suite of wildly entertaining, interactive distortion lenses, color filters, and facial recognition toys.

• DSi Sound: An incredibly robust audio application. Players could load an SD card with AAC music files and use the DSi as an MP3 player. More importantly, you could record audio clips through the microphone and play with them—altering the pitch, adding echo, or running the audio backward.

• The DSi Shop and DSiWare: Taking a cue from the Wii Shop Channel, the console introduced a dedicated digital storefront. Players could spend “Nintendo Points” to download smaller, bite-sized digital games and utility applications directly to the system’s internal flash memory.

• Under the Hood Upgrades: The DSi was significantly more powerful than the original DS. It featured a processor clocked at twice the speed (133 MHz) and four times the RAM (16 MB), allowing for faster load times, the advanced OS menu, and a slightly larger, brighter set of 3.25-inch screens.

• The Death of the GBA Slot: To achieve a slimmer profile and make room for the SD card slot and internal memory, Nintendo entirely removed “Slot-2” from the bottom of the console. This meant the DSi completely lost backward compatibility with Game Boy Advance cartridges, as well as DS accessories that required the slot (like the DS Rumble Pak or the Guitar Hero: On Tour grip).

Notable DSiWare Software

While the DSi played the entire massive library of standard DS cartridges, its digital DSiWare shop birthed some incredible, highly specific software:

• Flipnote Studio: Arguably the most culturally significant application on the console. It was a completely free, surprisingly deep animation studio that allowed users to draw frame-by-frame animations using the stylus and record their own voice-overs. The online portal, Flipnote Hatena, birthed an entire generation of internet animators and viral memes before YouTube animation truly exploded.

• Shantae: Risky’s Revenge: A massive, beautifully animated “Metroidvania” platformer that pushed the DSi’s hardware to its limits, reviving the beloved Shantae franchise.

• WarioWare: Snapped!: A quirky launch title that heavily utilized the inner camera, requiring players to physically wave their hands and move their heads in front of the console to complete rapid-fire microgames.

The DSi XL

In early 2010, Nintendo released the Nintendo DSi XL. Mechanically identical to the base DSi, this model featured massive 4.2-inch screens (nearly double the viewing area of the DS Lite) and a larger, pen-like stylus. It was explicitly marketed toward an older demographic, boasting a wider viewing angle so families could gather around the console to solve Brain Age puzzles or read interactive cooking guides together.

The Sunset

The DSi enjoyed a relatively short but highly impactful reign as Nintendo’s flagship handheld before being succeeded by the entirely new Nintendo 3DS in 2011 (which carried over and expanded upon almost all of the DSi’s ideas). The digital storefront, the DSi Shop, was officially closed in March 2017, meaning native DSiWare can no longer be purchased on the original hardware.

Quick Note

The Nintendo DSi was a crucial stepping stone in handheld history. It paved the way for the modern digital eShops and normalized the idea of a gaming handheld having an integrated operating system with built-in multimedia apps.

In short: While losing the Game Boy Advance slot stung at the time, the sheer creative joy of warping your friends’ faces in the camera app and spending hundreds of hours animating stick figures in Flipnote Studio made the DSi a legendary device in its own right.