DS Conference in Japan

[Zeep]

Just an hour and a half ago (2:30 PM in Japan), Nintendo held a press conference where they revealed a few details about upcoming stuff for the DS, and formally revealed the DS Lite.

New Super Mario Bros will release in May (in Japan, at least) for 4800 yen (the price of a normal DS game).
Tetris DS will be released for the budget price of 3800 yen.
A few new games were unveiled, including a Calligraphy Training game, a cooking game (may or may not be the same one we've already seen), and new footage was shown for Children of Mana and Xenosaga, both evetually to become US releases.
Nintendo will release an Opera-based web browser for the DS as an addon cartridge. UPDATE!! The browser will be contained in two seperate cartridges: one is a DS cart which holds the software, and the other is a GBA cart which will serve as a memory expansion so that you can view webpages that won't fit in the DS's 4MB of RAM. The GBA cart will be released as a standard size one, for the original DS, and a Lite edition, which is smaller to fit the shortened Slot 2 of the DS Lite.
http://ds.advancedmn.com/images/content/news/operads.jpg
Nintendo will also release a TV tuner for the DS, which will protrude from the DS Card slot, and have a short antenna. However, it is designed to use a special kind of Japanese TV broadcasting, so whether it will make it to the US or not is unknown.
http://ds.advancedmn.com/images/content/news/DSTVTuner.jpg
http://ds.advancedmn.com/images/content/news/dstuner2.jpg
http://ds.advancedmn.com/images/content/news/dstuner3.jpg


More images:

http://watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20060215/nin1_01.jpg

http://img234.imageshack.us/img234/5681/rockcd5dp.jpg

http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20060215/nin1_03.jpg

http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20060215/nin1_07.jpg

http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20060215/nin1_10.jpg

Opera's Press release (http://opera.com/pressreleases/en/2006/02/15/)


Source (http://nintendonow.e-mpire.com/index.php?categoryid=4&m_articles_articleid=3441)

[Garfunkle]

Hell yeah....!!!

[OnBake Platinum]

Holy shit!

[Moses]

$28 Tetris is still a little much, even though it is WiFi.

[HeroOfTimeGCN]

woo!

INTERWEB ON MY DS!!! TRAVEL SIZED RED VS BLUE!! WOOHOO!

[Generosity of God]

me wantee secret of mana
me wantee xenosaga I & II
me wantee web browser
me wantee tv tuner
me wantee money to afford previous wantees

[Hylian-Advocate]

how come you didn't source nintendo now...

We had it up before you posted this

[Tael]

The web browser looks cool.

[Lynk Former]

Opera DS!! Woot

Looks like once I get my hands on Opera DS I'll be doing a little work on my site so when people visit it with Opera it'll be all be nicely set up for them.

[Mathx]

The web browser looks promising...And I bet they could alter the TV tuner for the US.

[Derrick Barra]

The first thing that came to my mind was, "More work for the E-mpire web design crew."

I swear to freaking god if they don't have flash and internet movie codec support I will punch Reggie in the throat. Right after I say what a big fan of him I am.

I'm kinda bummed that they didn't make this web browser a gba cart, but it makes sense after you see that the DS Lite has a smaller cartridge spot (And plus some kid would try to use it on his GBA.). Now if they would just release a kick ass american version of the Play-Yan I would splooge.

[speed stick]

Thats awesome. I wonder how much the opera is going to cost. Damn, this could be interesting.

[Zeep]

$28 Tetris is still a little much, even though it is WiFi.
But it's better than $35 Tetris.

[OutlawAdidas]

The first thing that came to my mind was, "More work for the E-mpire web design crew."

I swear to freaking god if they don't have flash and internet movie codec support I will punch Reggie in the throat. Right after I say what a big fan of him I am.

I'm kinda bummed that they didn't make this web browser a gba cart, but it makes sense after you see that the DS Lite has a smaller cartridge spot (And plus some kid would try to use it on his GBA.). Now if they would just release a kick ass american version of the Play-Yan I would splooge.



the software is on the DS and the memory expansion is on the GBA cart.....

makes alot of sense since now you can just upgrade the cart whenever

also, I nearly ejaculated when I saw this

[IEatFriedPikmin]

wow... this is like my wish come true. I never thought nintendo would ever consider a web browser for the DS.

to top it all off they are using opera, which is a great web browser. I hope it will work with flash files and movie codecs as well.

And I dont know how easy it would be to browse the web... Ill probably still mainly use my computer, and I guess I could go online next time i go to mcdonalds, but still...

[Zeep]

[in response to OA] ^Yeah, i mentioned that in my original post. Look where it says "update" in big red letters.

also, more pics:

DS/Lite side-by-side. you can also see the brightness difference. (http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20060215/nin24.htm)

FF3 (http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20060215/nin22.htm)

The three Lite colors (http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20060215/nin01.htm)

New Mario Bros screenshot (http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20060215/nin21.jpg)

I can't tell what game this is (http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20060215/nin16.jpg)

Iwata holding DS Lite (http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20060215/nin03.jpg)

The two different browser cart versions (http://www.famitsu.com/game/news/2006/02/15/h-103_48745_bura1.jpg.jpg)

More pics from Famitsu (http://www.famitsu.com/game/news/2006/02/15/103,1139990282,48745,0,0.html)

[henryhund]

Well, this GBA expansion cart for the web browser... it seems that it's just like a blank cartridge with some formatting. I wonder how Nintendo will control piracy?

[Zeep]

it won't just be a blank cart. it'll have software on it to optimize loading/copying data to it for faster load times, and to prevent any unlicensed sofwater from writing to it. Plus, how would piraters copy files onto it either way? it's not like you could hook it up to your computer.

And even then, you coud theoretically download roms onto it, but how could you play them?

also, UPDATE: the cooking game is not a game at all, but a cooking "assistant." it'll be like a digital cookbook, which can spek using voice synthsizer technology, AND voice recognition. it'll also allow the user to , for example, input what kinds of food they have or want to eat to get suggestions for meals to cook. you'll also be able to save shopping lists on it.

more update: the web browser will allow you to browse full pages on the bototm screen, and close-ups on the top screen.

[henryhund]

On the blank cartridge... I suppose you are correct, the files/formatting will be just like it were a game. On the writing to the cartridge, I was assuming some hacker or something would make a cord/program for writing. But then again, if that were to happen you could just write to any cartridge, I guess.

[IEatFriedPikmin]

^(zeep) wow, my mom would love that! and it will help if I go to college somewhere else next semester.

[Danji]

I wonder about the efficiency of that browser..and if it'll make it stateside. The TV is not really neat..and won't make it here if past GBA addons like that are anything to judge by.

Tetris is the last game I'll buy for my DS until Castlevania comes out. It looks to be the best puzzle game to come out in a long time. Which reminds me. I was really disappointed by meteos. Too much action and not enough thought.

[Viper]

Signal receptor input?

[Zeep]

What?

also, you do know that castlevanaia already came out, right, Danji?

[Red_Wing]

wow... this is like my wish come true. I never thought nintendo would ever consider a web browser for the DS.

to top it all off they are using opera, which is a great web browser. I hope it will work with flash files and movie codecs as well.

And I dont know how easy it would be to browse the web... Ill probably still mainly use my computer, and I guess I could go online next time i go to mcdonalds, but still...

Well, I think flash is out of the question.


* Will not support Java applets, Adobe Flash or PDF formats
* Two browsing modes: fit to width and DS mode
* Zoom
* Bookmarks
* Handwriting - write in the URL rather than type
* Runs on reg DS and DS Lite


Source: infendo.com

It makes sense, flash is really processor intensive.

[Danji]

also, you do know that castlevanaia already came out, right, Danji?
They're working on another already.

As for flash working on it, I don't see that happening. Flash is memory consumptive and if the PSP can't fit a working version of flash on all of it's memory then I doubt the DS could even with the extra RAM. But I'm not saying it's impossible...the conditions of this happening though would be very interesting.

[Victor]

PSP is the best thing that could have happened to Nintendo, It actually forces them to compete. Then awesome stuff like this happens.

[speed stick]

Thats too bad flash is not going to be able to work. But i do understand the reasoning behind it. I don't think I will be picking this browser up anytime soon considering it will be $50can.

[Sovereign]

PSP is the best thing that could have happened to Nintendo, It actually forces them to compete. Then awesome stuff like this happens.
Unless Nintendo got early on wind about Sony making a PSP I doubt that they planned the DS to be its downfall but I can see where your coming from. I seriously doubt seeing a web browser for the DS without the PSP.

I think the DS was just on the board, just like the Revolution was even before the GAMECUBE came to stores.

[Zeep]

Thats too bad flash is not going to be able to work. But i do understand the reasoning behind it. I don't think I will be picking this browser up anytime soon considering it will be $50can.
Is that what most DS games cost? Because they said that the Japanese price will be less than that of a regular game.