Without any official announcement, Flipnote Studio is now available on the DSi Shop Channel in North America.

The free application allows players to make animated flipbooks using their own drawings and share them online. It is already available in Japan and will be available in Europe and Australia on Friday.

Thanks to UncleBob for the tip!

FLIPNOTE STUDIO FOR NINTENDO DSI GIVES PLAYERS THE TOOLS TO BECOME ANIMATORS

Free Downloadable Application Lets Users Share Creations

REDMOND, Wash., Aug. 12, 2009 – At one time or another, just about everyone has created an animated cartoon using nothing more than a pad of paper and some hand-drawn stick figures. Nintendo now brings these creations to life on its Nintendo DSi™ hand-held system with Flipnote Studio™, an application that is available now for download at no cost from the Nintendo DSi Shop.

Flipnote Studio provides users with simple tools that let them draw and save a series of images to create an animation reminiscent of flipping through a notepad. Flipnote Studio makes it easy for anyone to jump in and create animations, regardless of their artistic abilities.

Here's how it works: Users draw an image on the touch screen of the Nintendo DSi system. When they are ready to draw the next image in the sequence, Flipnote Studio shows an outline of the previous image as a reference. Once all the images are in place, the software can animate them as a creation called a Flipnote. People can add sound to their Flipnotes using the built-in microphone or using sounds they previously recorded in the Nintendo DSi Sound application. Or they can import photos as black and white images from the Nintendo DSi Camera album.

The results can be comical, dramatic or experimental. Once people become registered users of Hatena's Web site at http://flipnote.hatena.com, they can then upload their finished creations to the Flipnote Hatena site, operated by Hatena Co. Ltd, where others can view their creations – Nintendo DSi owners can even download other people's Flipnotes from Flipnote Hatena and then modify them to create their own unique works. Users can also share their Flipnotes using the Nintendo DSi local wireless feature and save their Flipnotes to an SD Card (sold separately) for easy storage.

"Flipnote Studio takes the phenomenon of user-generated content to new levels of creative self-expression and social sharing – with all the fun and accessibility that consumers expect from Nintendo," said Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America's executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. "The animation possibilities are limited only by users' imaginations."

Flipnote Studio is the latest in the ever-growing library of Nintendo DSiWare™ games and applications that users can download directly from the Nintendo DSi Shop. Nintendo DSiWare is designed as a creative playground where consumers can access fun and interesting games and applications from developers large and small. Some items in the Nintendo DSi Shop, such as Flipnote Studio, are available at no cost, while others can be downloaded in exchange for Nintendo DSi Points™. As a reminder, anyone who buys a Nintendo DSi system and connects it to the Nintendo DSi Shop by Oct. 5, 2009, will automatically receive 1,000 Nintendo DSi Points.

Remember that Nintendo DSi features parental controls that let adults manage the content their children can access. For more information about this and other Nintendo DSi features, visit www.NintendoDSi.com.

For more information about Flipnote Studio, visit www.FlipnoteStudio.com.