When Nintendo unveiled its latest DS model, the DSi, last week, our first thought was that the Kyoto giant was putting some moves on Sony’s PlayStation Portable fanbase. The DSi is, after all, much more of a multimedia device than the DS Lite: like the PSP, it features a built-in music player (albeit one restricted to crummy MP3s) and Internet browser.
How would Sony respond to this fresh assault on its territory? With becoming mildness, it turns out. Speaking to Gizmodo, Sony’s Director of Hardware MSoarketing John Koller was ambivalent on Nintendo’s ‘baby-steps’ product strategy.
"Nintendo has kind of a history of these [moderate] kinds of updates," he said, "and even with DS Lite, there was a lot of discussion, ‘Is that enough?’ And they seemed to do pretty well there."
Koller admitted that the DSi would probably live up to its heritage sales-wise: "I can see the DSi being successful. The DS lite was obviously very successful." But he questioned the validity of the update from a consumer perspective. "Will DSi do well with [the DS’s] demographic? It probably will. Will it be a product that expands their user base [beyond] under 12? I’m not sure."
I’m not sure either. I’ve used my DS precisely once in the past two months, and that was because I’d run out of drink coasters. Anybody under 12 here care to comment?