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There are several stories of the new DSi being a big competition for the iPod Touch. Its music playback function and dual cameras are assumed to be a threat for the mobile phones as well. But before this speculation could go more complex, Satoru Iwata, the Nintendo CEO decided to express a positive opinion. The Nintendo DSi page of the company in which the “Iwata Asks” post communicated that these notions are ridiculous. He added that Nintendo has not designed DSi to kill the iPod Touch or any other existing products. This issue has been exaggerated by the mass media and created an impression that Nintendo DSi wants to compete with iPod or mobile phones. He said that the advanced features like music players and cameras are there to improve the product and not to pose any threat to the existing products.

Iwata further clarified that “I hope those who have such an impression will take an interest in what Nintendo can make when it dedicates itself to pleasing as many people as possible who pick up as DS, and I hope they’ll actually pick one up themselves.”

However, if we scrutinize the situation, we won’t find it difficult to agree with Iwata because a camera of 0.3 mega pixel and a music player are that outstanding features that can actually outshine the Apple iPod. So if you are looking forward to buy a DSi, its better to have balanced expectations from it. Don’t expect it to replace the Apple iPod touch 32 GB and just welcome it as a gaming device , which as per Nintendo is ‘the next generation of handheld gaming’. Get it for what it is!

Up until now you must have experienced or at least heard of Nintendo’s Wii Fit that offers gaming and physical fitness together. However, the Wii Fit is limited to certain games and thus the exercise it offers is also limited. But now all the obstructions are being eliminated by the Powerhouse French video game maker Ubisoft. The company has recently developed a ‘Gold’s Gym: Cardio Workout’ video game in collaboration with US fitness giant Gold’s Gym to offer Nintendo Wii fans a gym like workout with fun filled elements.

Gamers will be able to make use of their Wii Balance Boards to tone up their body by participating in activities like boxing, sit-ups, running and other exercises. The video game is very rewarding and realistic. It not only offers fun filled exercise but also tracks amounts of calories burned along with changes in body weight. So, over a period of time gamers can actually measure how much they have gained via playing the game. The game has got a stupendously designed virtual Gold’s Gym that has got loads of tools, equipment and inspiring environment. Of course, it is limited to cardio, since you can’t really simulate pumping a 9.0 kgs Gold’s Gym Chrome Dumbbell without the dumbbell in your hand. Everything else though, besides the strength training, is provided. For instance to recreate an authentic Gold’s Gym experience the game will incorporate gym signage and dialogue into the game.

Lisa Zoellner, chief marketing officer at Gold’s said, “We are excited to partner with Ubisoft on our first video game. It is in line with our mission to get more people around the world excited about exercise and fitness. We believe that the game will provide consumers with a workout that is both fun and rewarding.”

Nintendo is known for its top notch gaming entertainment consoles across the globe. The company is topping the sales chart every month. Its two most popular products are Wii and the DS product line that contains the original DS, DS Lite and DSi. Wii attracts most of the health conscious video gamers and the DS consoles are the hot favourite of mobile gamers.

The company believes that the reason behind this great success story is the content that the users receive. Apart from the consoles features and hardware configuration the users love the content very much. The Nintendo DS Lite product line and Wii consoles is backed by a variety of unique content that makes the Nintendo stand apart. There are uncountable gaming titles covering every genre and thus the company succeeds in pulling every type of gamer.

To further accelerate the growth the company is now focusing on the content development more strategically. This year the Nintendo will analyse the demand region wise. The company finds that in a particular region most of the consumers prefer certain type of games and other material. The company is also backing up this new strategy with plans to open a new R&D facility in Kyoto, Japan on 40,000 square metres it already purchased.

Fils-Aime, Nintendo’s President for America says, “Different games are appropriate for different audiences. Each region around the world has already developed its own identity. Games like Metroid Prime tend to be more popular in the West, while Japanese audiences favour RPGs. But no matter the region, Nintendo strives to bring the best content to its audiences. That sometimes means niche titles don’t always make it but it also ensures that we are getting the best content.”

Tags for this article: content, development, ds lite, games, nintendo, r&d, research, strategy, wii

Almost every gamer is aware of the Nintendo DS Lite. It is the most preferred handheld gaming device to date. The DS Lite is the successor of Nintendo’s DS gaming console. It was developed to offer mobile gamers a new sleek and powerful gaming console. DS Lite is much enhanced as compared to original DS and it’s the biggest competitor is Sony’s PlayStation Portable, popularly known as the PSP.

DS Lite is 21 percent lighter and 42 percent slimmer than the DS. It has got a better display with good brightness and colour levels. Like DS, DS Lite also sports dual displays out of which one supports touchscreen and the other responds to the game pad and built-in functional keys. This is the main feature that earns loads of extra points for Nintendo DS Lite over PSP and any other console. Performance wise the DS Lite is a must have gadget. It possesses great capabilities and is powered via top notch processing units. Be it graphics, fluid videos or astonishing acoustics, the DS Lite can offer all of them to the gamers. Since its launch, the DS Lite has attained great success in the mobile gaming market. It has always set new sales records over the years. Recently, the Nintendo has sold over 3 million DS Lite consoles in the U.S. in December 2008 only. This is the first time that any gaming console has touched such a huge sales figure in a single month.

DS Lite is the favourite of loads of mobile gamers all over the world. Now the Nintendo has released an upgraded version of DS Lite called DSi. It is the third gaming handheld in the DS family.

Tags for this article: console, ds lite, handheld, mobile, nintendo

Wii Music is a wonderful music video game exclusively developed for Nintendo’s top notch video game console, the Wii. It is targeted at teaching and playing music to the users. The Wii Music is a part of Nintendo’s Wii Series and Touch! Generation games and is a perfect application for learning music. It is unique because it offers quick and interesting way to play musical instruments via high resolution simulation. The Wii Music makes use of all that Nintendo gaming equipment that helps to keep the gamer in good physical health, i.e. Wii Remote, Wii Nunchuk, and the Wii Balance Board.

Due to its awesome benefits, high success rate and worldwide popularity some US schools have also decided to give the Wii Music a place in the classrooms. Just like Wii consoles have been used to keep people fit and in shape, the console is now being used to help teach music as well. There it will be used as an educational aid and is expected to encourage the students and other persons to learn and develop interest in music. Wii Music is going to be an integral part of the curriculum. The school’s teachers believe that this will help the students to learn the A-B-C’s of different musical instruments in no time and they will really realise the importance of sweet acoustics.

Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo’s executive vice president states, “By partnering with educators and bringing Wii Music into their classrooms, we hope to give students a memorable, hands-on experience that helps them discover their own creative voice.”

Tags for this article: educational, learning, music, nintendo, remote, wii

The Nintendo Wii needs no introduction. This revolutionary gaming console has got millions of fans all over the world. It clearly beats the Sony PS3 and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 in terms of sales. The simple reason behind this is the Wii’s unique interactive controls, which allow it to offer an experience not with any other next gen gaming console. One of the major issues with home gaming consoles is that they practically make gamers disabled, as many play the games for days on end without moving anything more than their thumbs. This slowly leads to joint related and muscular problems.

However, the Wii completely takes the responsibility of your physical fitness. All you have to do is get a copy of Wii Fit + Balance Board and Wii Sports. The Wii balance board can be used to do loads of physical exercises including yoga, push ups and crunches without getting bored. Of course, you first need to have a Wii Console before you either the Wii Fit or Balance Board will work. The Wii board can also simulate your body posture and moments on the connected screen and provides a step by step tutorial on how to proceed. It also measures your performance at each level and motivates to improve further. Wii Balance board is excellent to keep your body toned up.

Another useful product by Nintendo is the Wii sports. It does not require a balance board and works with the Wii Remote. Wii Sports is basically a pack of five individual games, i.e. tennis, baseball, bowling, golf, and boxing. To play these games the gamer has to move his Wii Remote in appropriate direction with accurate speed and intensity. For example, during boxing the gamer has to punch his opponent by holding the Wii Remote in his hands and moving his fists in the proper manner. Ultimately the Wii balance board and Wii sports brings a perfect workout solution for pro gamers.

The battle for game console supremacy has been closely fought for over two decades. Currently, the Xbox 360, PS3, and Nintendo Wii are all vying for the top spot among the next generation consoles. Instead of trying to surpass its competitors in the graphics department, with extremely in depth games, the Nintendo Wii took gaming into an entirely different direction with its motion sensing controls; which allow the console to outsell its competitors by a large margin, whilst appealing to traditional non-gamers.

This gaming console is potent enough to get you immersed into the game. All that you can expect from it is outstanding graphics and astonishing acoustics. The most exciting feature of Wii is that it can detect your hand and body movements via a variety of accessories. This gives the gamers an exceptional gaming and more realism in the virtual world. The Nintendo Wii Remote works wirelessly and has sensors, which make it vibrate according to the game sequence. This one single feature alone is the explanation for the Wii’s success, and it can actually enhanced with accessories also such as racing kit, which includes wireless accelerator, brakes and driving wheel for enjoy racing titles in a unique way. Morever, a new development known as Wii Motion Plus is on the horizon and it will make it possible for the Wii Remote to function even better and more accurately.

Technically, the Nintendo Wii is powerful than its predecessor, the Nintendo GameCube. Its processing core is supercharged via two processors out of which one is the high speed CPU and the other one is a GPU dedicated for graphics processing. On the memory part, the Wii has an 88 MB of main memory, 64 MB of external GDDR3 RAM and 3MB of GPU embedded memory that gives it enough power to carry on complex geometry calculations and sound processing. For storage, the Wii has a built in memory of 512 MB and can support up to 2GB via SD card.

The Nintendo Wii is one if the most successful video game consoles of all time. Every year it breaks sales record in different regions. A huge number of people of all ages prefer the Wii as the primary source of home entertainment, but now this thing has occasionally resulted in injuries to Wii users.

According to the doctors and researchers from Leeds Teaching Hospital, once the people get addicted to Wii gaming they tend to ignore their physical activities and workouts. As a result, they are vulnerable to many types of physical injuries and disorders. The fact is that many of the hardcore fans of this gaming console tend to spend 10-12 hours on gaming which is an alarming development. Due to the vast array of games, parents of all ages get involved in the process as well instead of rectifying the habit of their children. The doctors call this as ‘Wii Knee’ which means that prolonged gaming hours on Nintendo Wii causes sprains, fractures and injuries to the users. They also expect a surge in the number of victims as the Wii will be gaining high sales due to the X-Mas festive season.

Websites like Wiidamage, Wiiinjury and Wiihaveaproblem contains documents which explain the possible damages that the Nintendo Wii and similar products can cause to the human body and other equipment like LCD TV. However gaming is a good source to refresh oneself but it should be followed by some physical activity. Gaming is good, but game addiction is not. So physicians regularly advise the Nintendo Wii users to keep a check on their gaming habits and establish a balance between passive gaming and active physical activities.

Recently Nintendo has added a new member to its DS family called the Nintendo DSi. This is an upgrade to the DS Lite console, or you can consider it as the third version of the DS handheld gaming console. Equipped with loads of new features and enhancements, the DSi promises to offer an unprecedented gaming experience. The DS and DS Lite have already attained great success in Japan, America and Europe. Naturally, the much enhanced DSi looks to appeal to an equally wide audience.

The new DSi is 12 percent thinner than the DS Lite. Appearance wise, it stands between the PSP and iPhone. Just like the old DS versions, the Nintendo DSi also packs dual screens but this time with a better contrast ratio, brightness and bigger viewable area. The speakers are improved as well. The overall screen size of both the DSi screens is 8 percent bigger than the DS Lite displays. The bottom one supports the touch screen operations and the upper screen responds to the game buttons and key pad. Unlike the DS and DS Lite the DSi has five levels of brightness. However this makes the DSi a little bit power hungry and offers less battery run time on a single charge as compared to its predecessors. The new features provided in DSi include two VGA cameras and a SD card slot. One of the cameras is placed at the internal hinge and the other one resides on the outer shell. The new SD card slot can be used to store digital media such as pictures, songs, downloaded software etc. An audio player is also installed in the new handheld. So you can use it for listening to your favorite tracks too, besides hi-fi gaming.

The downloadable applications for the DSi will be available at DSi shop. Some of them will be provided free of cost but some will cost 200, 500 or 800 Nintendo Points. The Japanese customers of DSi will get 1000 Nintendo points as a gift from the company if they purchase the DSi by March 2010.