Nintendo Dsi LL: For real?

The Nintendo DS is insanely popular. Judging by the sales numbers that I look at every month or two, I'm pretty sure that every household in America must own at least three of them. Maybe one or two for gaming, and then a couple more to use as doorstops or paperweights.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that the DS is so popular that Nintendo is just going to keep remaking them forever. No more Wii, no more Game Boy. Every year or so, add a new feature or gimmick to the DS and BAM, free money.

The original bulky Nintendo DS launched in November 21, 2004 and it was pretty okay, just a little clunky.

The sleek DS Lite launched on June 11, 2006. Not even two years apart, but hey, this new version had a lot going for it. Smaller, shinier, brighter, a worthy upgrade to the original system. I still have my DS Lite and I love it.

The DSi launched in America in April of 2009. This time we got a three year wait for a new version and many companies would have released an entirely new system by now, for better or worse. But we (well, not me because I didn't buy one) were rewarded with.... a lame camera and terrible, embarrassingly bad, download only games? Thanks, Nintendo. But surely this is the last we'll hear of the DS for a while. Right?

OCTOBER 2009, a mere six months later, news of a fourth generation Nintendo DS with an... interesting... name. The Nintendo Dsi LL will be the same as the DS, only... bigger.

It looks like the stylus is evolving into something the size of a ballpoint pen. Yeah, it's going to be REALLY fun to switch between d-pad and stylus controls on the fly now. You might have to bolt this system to the wall or something because it sure isn't going to be fun to carry around.

It's going to be a sad day when Nintendo announces that new games will no longer be fully (or at all) compatible with the original DS or DS Lite. I have no doubt that it'll be sooner rather than later.