Even more on analogue to digital interfaces.
Image via Sydney Morning Herald
A poll of the office here as well a scan of the blogs bring a fairly tepid response to the new Nintendo DSi. However I am optimistic that it’s actually going to prove to be a pretty significant leap forward when all’s said and done.
From a feature standpoint, there’s not a lot to mention:
- Slimmer, smaller form factor
- Larger screens
- 2 x built-in camera
- Updated Wii-style interface
- Music playback
- Photo manipulation software
- DSi Shop/DSWare download service
- Increased internal memory / SD Card support
- No GBA port
But I think that the dual cameras ought to enable some pretty revolutionary new gameplay. I don’t think that Nintendo really means them to be image capture devices. Instead I think they’re meant as input-capture devices. Dual cameras mean that the movements of two people can be captured at the same time and mapped onto the same field of play. I can imagine lots of scenarios where this could be really revolutionary. Or consider that dual cameras could allow for some pretty amazing augmented reality gaming as one camera captures your surroundings, another captures your actions and the game maps both together.
Combine this with some other new input devices that are starting to appear and the DSi could do for portable gaming what the Wii did for living room games.
I see this as another example of a couple of trends that I’ve been following over the past year or so. The rise of analogue to digital interfaces or the importance of measurement are both facets of a desire to digitize aspects of our physical world so that the associated data can be manipulated by services. The value that the DSi will bring won’t be in its hardware as much as it will be in its software. Value isn’t in things it’s in the services that ride on top of those things. I also think this can only be good news for cash strapped manufacturers as they look for new ways to delight their customers.