Viva Nintendo!

I couldn't help myself: I bought a Nintendo DS Lite.

Okay, okay, so maybe I could help myself. After all, last year I invested in a Game Boy Micro that's now in the welcome hands of my brother. But when I saw the demo for New Super Mario Brothers, as well as videos of the upcoming Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass, all rational thought sort of ceased to function. I'm a little bit nuts that way.

The DS Lite has become very popular in Japan but hadn't been released in the US until today. It's basically a smaller, sleeker, and thereby improved version of the Nintendo Dual Screen handheld (i.e. the successor to the Game Boy Advance). Since this was the official release of the unit States-side, the Nintendo World store at Rockefeller Center pulled out most of the stops and had a release party of sorts at midnight, at which time they'd open their store for two hours for only the most dedicated to secure a DS Lite for themselves. The festivities included free pizza, the occasional mascot here and there (the Mario mascot was real neat), as well as the promise of a free game and carrying case for the first 100 customers who showed up and bought their DS Lite.

I didn't make it to the freebies. By 11:45pm, the line was nearly around the corner from the store, and some people had been there since 4pm just to make sure they'd be among the lucky 100.

But I was there. And I ended up getting my DS Lite at around 1:30am.

Was it worth it? Well, the wait sure wasn't. I think everyone at the tail end of the line (myself included) just hung around in the remote hope that the store management would relent and give everyone a freebie (no dice). I think in that two hour period Nintendo World sold near 200 DS Lites. As things turned out, I might as well have just showed up in the morning when the store opened at 11:00am, seeing how much more in stock they had by the time I left.

But as for the DS Lite itself, I couldn't be happier.

I used to be very skeptical about the Nintendo DS, for three reasons. First, it didn't look particularly attractive; in fact, it looked clunky when in first came out. Second, it has a clamshell design very similar to some of those very old game and watch games I grew up with. I've always been a firm believer that the fewer moving parts a gadget has, the better. Finally, I wasn't too fond of the touch screen: I couldn't see how a person could play a game requiring him to tap on the screen with the stylus.

But the DS Lite is a real gem. It's very, very sleek: when I first got my hands on it, I couldn't help but think that it looked like a miniature version of the Apple iBook. And the games that have come out more recently really make good use of the clamshell design, as well as the stylus. (One of the games I bought, Magnetica, uses not just the stylus very effectively but also the built in microphone. At some point in the game, you have to blow into the mic to clear up the screen. I know it sounds odd, and I must look like a total tool when I do that, but I think that's part of the fun). Further, the promise of Wi-Fi connectivity (for network gaming, not yet internet browsing) is a definite plus, especially if you and your friends intend to go at it in Super Mario Kart!

With the functionality of the DS Lite, I can now understand why some people eagerly anticipate the mere possibility that future firmware upgrades will turn it into a pseudo-personal digital assistant. This seems to be the Holy Grail of die-hard Nintendo DS afficionados. It doesn't look like it'll ever happen (though I think that there's an Opera browser in the works already). But I do think there must be someone out there who'll figure out that they can just create a cartridge with something akin to a Palm or Pocket PC OS inside. Now that would be something.

But enough about that. I've got an appointment to keep in the Mushroom Kingdom. Bowser beware!