So now that I’ve seen the new DSi, I’m pretty pumped to shell out another good chunk of money and abandon my 2-year-old DS Lite. Hell, I might even sell my iPod to help cover the cost, since having a DSi would mean that I would be carrying around a total of 4 MP3 players, and that just seems unnecessary.

Anyway, I’m not going to talk about the specs of this new machine since I’m sure you’ve already read about them at other news sites. Mostly I just want to pose a question: is the DSi a big enough improvement over the DS Lite to get the average gamer to make the upgrade?

Well, maybe. The bigger screens and MP3 functionality are certainly a plus, but since this device is reportedly being released in Japan for the equivalent of $180 USD, I doubt it’ll be much cheaper in the States. Since most DS users I know fall into the semi-casual category, it’s hard to see them ditching their relatively new DS Lites in favor of a model with only a few modest upgrades. Moreover, the lack of a GBA slot means that anybody that sold their GBAs when the DS came out won’t have a way to play their old GBA games. Hell, don’t forget that a lot of the really cool peripherals for the DS won’t work anymore (Guitar Hero: On Tour and Arkanoid, I’m looking at you).

Another concern that was brought to my attention is that of piracy. While I wouldn’t publicly advocate having a flash cart for your DS, I will say that I may or may not have one for myself and I may or may not have told several of my friends how they can get one. That disclaimer in mind, having an SD card slot is both awesome and dangerous. It’s awesome because this inclusion means that we’ll finally be able to save games directly to our DS systems. It’s dangerous because pirating could now be easier than ever, and knowing Nintendo I’m guessing that whatever copy protection they put on it will be easily worked around.

Lastly, the camera and internet functionality only worries me because I have friends that will take pictures of their penis and will send them to me.

Alright, that’s all I’ll say on the DSi. I’d also like to point out that I’m super excited for that new Mario & Luigi game that was teased in the above video. Hell yeah.

Anyway, the other major thing that was announced was a solution to the Wii’s storage space problem. Next Spring Nintendo will open up the SD card slot so you’ll be able to play games directly from them. All I can say is that it’s about time, though I’m concerned that, again, this will make the Wii much easier to pirate games for. The only reason this really concerns me is because I don’t want Nintendo to wind up in the same position SEGA was in with the Dreamcast. I’d hate to see another one of my favorite companies get pirated into the ground (though, now that I think about it, Nintendo has so much money these days it would take something a little more major than a bit of piracy to bring them down).

So yeah, any of you guys gonna join me in wasting a bunch of money on a new DS?