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DS

North America

Nintendo DS

by Jonathan Metts - May 11, 2004, 5:26 pm EDT

Touch your games in a whole new way.

Nintendo finally revealed its new portable system to the world at the pre-E3 2004 media briefing. The Nintendo DS (official but tentative name) is planned for a 2004 launch in the U.S. and Japan, with European and Australian launches expected in Q1 2005. No price point was given, but execs indicated that it will be very affordable, certainly less expensive than Sony's PSP.

The most obvious feature of the system is its dual screens, one on top of the other. Both screens are capable of displaying 2D or 3D graphics, and they can even be programmed to work as one very tall display, though there will be a break in the middle for the clamshell joint. The system looks to be slightly larger than the original Game Boy Advance, and it is very thin with a rectangular face. On the left is a D-pad and Start/Select buttons, while the right side contains four face buttons. Shoulder buttons were not visible on the prototype, but it's pretty safe to assume they will be present on the system, since the DS is backwards-compatible with GBA.

The other major new forms of input are the touchscreen and built-in microphone. Though we didn't see any demonstration of the microphone, Nintendo mentioned that it could be used for voice chat and voice recognition applications. The touch-sensitive lower screen can be used with either our fingertip or an included stylus pen. The initial lineup of DS games and demos depicts a wide range of uses for this technology, and an application called PictoChat focuses on the ability to draw figures and write messages on the screen for submitting to friends.

In order to facilitate such transmissions, the DS features two forms of wireless communication. Bluetooth networking can connect up to sixteen DS systems within a 100 foot range, while Wi-Fi networking lets you access the Internet wirelessly for gaming across the country. This particular feature is obviously a huge leap for Nintendo's online strategy; Wi-Fi is easily one of the hottest technologies right now, and public access points are popping up all over the place. You can use a wireless router in your home, too.

In terms of sheer processing and graphical power, the DS is somewhere between N64 and GameCube, as was widely expected. The system will also feature 16-bit sound; no details are yet available on its speaker(s).

We'll have much more info on the Nintendo DS and its games as E3 2004 rolls along!

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Developer Nintendo

Worldwide Releases

na: Nintendo DS
Release Nov 21, 2004
PublisherNintendo
jpn: Nintendo DS
Release Dec 02, 2004
PublisherNintendo
eu: Nintendo DS
Release Mar 11, 2005
PublisherNintendo
aus: Nintendo DS
Release Feb 24, 2005
PublisherNintendo

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