Preteens think Nintendo DSi is cool — will you?

Winda Benedetti Citizen Gamer • E-mail

You’ve heard that saying about wisdom from the mouths of babes. Yeah, well, since when do kids know anything about anything, much less walk around with pearls of wisdom dripping from their childish lips? When I was a kid, I believed that I could will myself to fly, that I was the reincarnation of St. Francis of Assisi and that paste made a perfectly fine afternoon snack. In short: I didn’t know jack.

And yet, having recently spent some time with a couple of adorable moppets and a new Nintendo DSi, I’m thinking, you know, these kids … maybe they’re onto something.

There I was, playing the DSi — the third iteration of the massively popular DS handheld gaming machine — and honestly, I was wondering: What’s the big deal? Launched on Sunday for $169.99, the DSi is not an entirely new device, but an upgrade. The most obvious changes from the previous version (the DS Lite): The DSi comes with two tiny cameras — one installed on the outside of the clamshell and one installed on the inside. It also comes loaded with applications that let you manipulate your photos as well as record tiny sound clips and manipulate them, too.

But the cameras seemed gimmicky to me. They take preposterously small photos (a mere .3 megapixels) and the photo-editing program offers nothing but some goofy gags — you can add a moustache to a picture of yourself or you can twist and tweak your photo until it looks like something you’d see in a funhouse mirror. The sound recording program amused me, but only for about 15 minutes. I couldn’t imagine returning to those features, and I was struggling to understand why anyone would feel compelled to upgrade from the good ol’ DS Lite, which costs $40 less.

And then a couple of pint-sized pals dropped by my place and I let them have a go at the DSi … and well, they loved it. I mean, they loooooved it.

Gary Gould While I found the new DSi's two tiny cameras and photo editing application gimmicky, 10-year-olds Ivy Galloway, left, and Sophia Eisner thought they were totally cool.

They loved taking silly pictures. They loved manipulating the pictures. They loved recording their voices and then tweaking that recording until it hit a pitch so high that adult ears in the room began to bleed (almost). And soon they had the adults in the room roped into playing with them, posing for pictures and laughing at the ridiculousness of it all.

Despite my DSi skepticism, Sophia Eisner and Ivy Galloway — both 10 years old — assured me repeatedly: “It’s cool!”

Wisdom from the mouths of babes? Quite probably. That is, I realized something … apparently I still don’t know jack when it comes to what’s cool in the eyes of the preteen set.

Nintendo on the other hand …
… knows a thing or two about what kids these days (and quite a few adults) think is, like, totally cool. After all, they’ve sold 100 million DS machines worldwide (the original DS launched in 2004 and the svelter DS Lite launched in 2006).

With its sassy dual-screen design, a touch screen and a lineup of family-friendly titles like “Nintendogs” and “Anything Pokemon,” the DS has been a mega hit with young gamers. Meanwhile, titles like “Brain Age” and “Personal Trainer: Cooking” have made DS owners out of non-gamers and grandmas. And many veteran gamers love the DS too, reveling in the machine’s hefty library of well-crafted titles.

Clearly Nintendo hopes the DSi will help extend the life of this gracefully aging lady. In addition to the cameras, she’s been given a slimmer shape and bigger screens (3.25 inches vs. 3 inches). She loses the slot for GameBoy Advance games but gains a slot for an SD memory card. The DSi can also play music files. Using an SD card, you can import your music — that is, as long as your music is in AAC format because MP3s are not supported (a real head scratcher).

But Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America's executive VP of sales and marketing, says that what’s more important than having the ability to play your music, is being able to take your favorite songs and tweak them. The DSi allows you to change up individual tunes by altering the pitch and speed and by adding various sound effects. You can show off your creations to your pals though you can't permanently save these changes.

“The DSi is really designed to be a very personal gaming experience and to the take interactivity to the next level,” Dunaway says. Interactivity, creation, customization … she insists that’s what people want nowadays.

You know what else people want nowadays? They want to make farting sounds. Or at least, they want to be able to download bite-sized applications that allow them to break digital wind (and maybe do some other humorous and helpful things as well). And Nintendo might just have that covered too. Allow me to explain.

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