DSi Prices

As well loved as the Nintendo DS Lite is, there is the strong possibility that Nintendo will put the DS Lite, which has been on sale for almost three years, out to pasture.

When asked if the DS Lite would be phased out, David Yarnton, managing director of Nintendo UK, who’s been speaking to MVC this week had this to say: “We’ll let the market decide. We expect some people will upgrade, but we also anticipate that we’ll win over people who were still undecided on DS – the extra features will help convince them.”

It’s highly unlikely that all DS Lite owners will rush out and upgrade to the DSi, especially considering the £150 price tag, however further down the line if the price of the DSi has come down and with a host of sparkly new DSi games, I can’t see much reason to keep the DS Lite going.

Nintendo has won a lawsuit against the Chinese makers of the R4 cartridge, which enables the playing of DS games via a microSD card. The ruling makes illegal the import and sale of the device in Japan.

This however does not affect the DSi, as it has been designed by Nintendo to be incompatible with the R4, however i’m sure it won’t be long untill the hackers find a way round this protection.

Nintendo DS R4 Cartridge Now Illegal In Japan

Since the Japanese release of the Nintendo DSi in November last year a lot has been speculated about region locking. Mainly it was by worried importers who wanted to get their hands on the DSi early, but still wanted to play games from their home territory.

In an interview with the Times, Nintendo UK general manager David Yarnton has cleared up the issue, the DSi will be able to play games from any country, but downloadable games will be subject to region locking. The reason for locking the downloadable games is stated as being because of the various age ratings systems around the world.

So there you have it, if you want to import a DSi, go ahead. Providing you can read the Japanese menus of course.