Gadgetory

I'm Cena comms karasu boy here at nintendo's gamer summit in San Francisco on October second and i'm joined by charlie schibetta he is the senior director of corporate communications for a nintendo and charlie i am most interested in hearing about dsi this is the third iteration of Nintendo's very popular DS handheld gaming system why don't you explain what is new with the dsi sure so Japan last night announced the dsi is coming out there november first it's not coming to North America until next year so we're getting a little sneak peak of it right now the d/s light is still selling great for us we actually just had the most successful august ever for any video game system either console or handheld so the momentum is still strong for deus like this holiday we got at least one more holiday in US but when it does come out next year and when it comes out in Japan here on November first there's a lot of exciting things happening with the dsi it's got a couple of cameras installed so you can shoot straight ahead or another camera shoots right back at you you have memory right in the unit so you can download songs play songs listen to them AC format wider screen it's thinner and so there's a lot of cool things going on with this I think we're really going to make it better for gamers but knowing that it is coming out at some point in 2009 are people really going to be motivated to want to continue to buy the DS lite well they're motivated right now there we had a record year last year where 22% ahead this year at this point through August than we were last year so people are still buying them and the key to that is games if there's games to power any console or handheld people are going to keep buying it until you've tapped out creatively on it which I think we're a long way from people will still do that and what's interesting about you know how many people have bought it in Japan roughly one and two households has a d/s late already and whereas an America where just one in five so we still think we have a little bit of room to grow now one of the initial complaints I've heard about the dsi is that not all of the DS Lite games are compatible imagine are going to be new titles to satisfy some people but what do you have to say about the complaints that people already have some of these older games in hand well all the D snds light games will play on the dsi what was eliminated was a GBA slot game boy advance which is a couple generations ago so that's going away but you can still play all your GBA games on your DSN UDS light so it actually is compatible so I think we're going to be ok there ok so we do not have a specific date for the dsi released in America is that right that's right there sometime next year sometime in 09 and what about pricing what is the structure looking like well we haven't announced any pricing yet either what if you look at what Japan announced last night that's roughly one hundred eighty dollars here the d/s light right now sells for 129 so we'll announce pricing next year when we do a more more complete rollout of what the unit's all about and when it's coming out so for a potential fifty dollar increase and I know that's not set in stone of course but for fifty dollars more the customer will be getting thinner screen dual cameras well it's a it's a thinner unit altogether a bigger screen eager screen yeah and the ability to listen to music on your on your game machine I think it's really a compelling argument in terms of why you want to do it because if I can do X I can listen to music I can take photos with it you know both of the people in myself I can edit those photos with editing software I have memory right on there so I can download games and play them right there without having to worry about you know inserting a cartridge so there's a lot of things going on there i think they are pretty cool colors everyone wants to know what colors that come into you know it's one of the interesting things about the the DS market is how the colors can just bring a whole new bunch of people and it just attracted by the color so there will be colors obviously when it when it launches here we don't know what those colors are yet but that's one of the fun things about that you know what that's what's clippings keeps the DS Lite fresh is that new colors come out and people want to get that new color the dsi chromatic yeah really make that your new ad campaign for us right sounds good fit in marketing any final tidbits you can share with our audience just to keep them keep them waiting keep them anticipating when the release comes in 09 well what's interesting about it too is that there's something called the Nintendo DSi shop so not only can you buy games at retail but you can download them right the internet so with that memory you can start right there you know when you download a game and you play a multiplayer game with somebody once you turn the machine off it goes away and you'll have to download a fresh now with the memory and with that downloading capability your games will stay there so anytime you want to play you can just turn on this like that that's right there for you now it's an interesting marketing position you're in you can't really tell everyone to wait until 09 to buy the dsi because you still want them to buy the light but if you consider dice it is it's a balancing act because you want to get people excited about it and they're interested in it because they're always interested in new technology but you also have a pretty compelling offering this holiday and we do think it is as compelling we had great games coming out and it's a good value so we think it's going to be on a good holiday for us and we did announce that we're having more quantity of this year than last year so hopefully if you go into by when your be able to get one great thank you very much Charlie schibetta Nintendo I'm Kara Tsuboi cnet.com