Link: http://www.nintendodsi.com/

Ooh... a new DS! Well, I have the DS Lite - the second iteration which was slimmer, lighter and had a brighter screen (more levels) than the original DS. Now, the launch of the DSi has been announced.

Nintendo DSi launches in the United States on April 5, 2009, at an MSRP of $169.99. The colors available at launch will be Blue and Black.

Black and blue eh? Wonder what they mean? The hit to our pocket books? What's new is the camera. The TWO cameras. One on the external body and one that points at you when you flip the thing open.

Another improvement is the sound application which serves as both an interactive voice recorder and music player. Users can access different audio filters or control the pitch and speed of recorded voice or music files to alter voices or change the tempo of a song. Even with the screenshut, we can access music files saved on an SD card. With SDHC cards containing upwards of 8G of space... that's a lot of music.

Backward compatible? Yes... mostly... anyone want to buy a much loved, gently used 2nd iteration DS? I want this baby.

I may or may not have blogged here about this phenomenon before, as the first pilot programme was at the Safeco (Baseball) field here in Seattle. So it was a local phenomenon.

What they did was to allow fans with DS devices to download software that allowed them to get stats and player info, watch extra videos, order food and drinks and interact with each other during games. This "Nintendo Fan Network" will remain exclusive to Seattle through 2008, but Nintendo's winter marketing plan includes a slate of baseball, golf and monster-truck sponsorships and events that will put the DS to use.

This article in Advertising Age teases us about this program but doesn't tell us diddly about how this will be implemented, since the Fan network will remain exclusive to Safeco field.