As sited from ign.com,
"November 3, 2008 - Over the weekend, Nintendo released the Nintendo DSi on its official launch day: November 1st. If you were lucky enough to be on the streets of Japan, you may have secured yourself one of these coveted upgrades to Nintendo's successful DS handheld platform. But judging from our correspondents who were in Japan during the launch, unless you had prepared for the system release you probably walked away empty-handed.
While we at the IGN San Francisco office still have yet to get our own system, our Japan editors managed to snag a system for hands-on coverage. Because you might have been out doing all sorts of fun weekend-type things, we thought we'd bring to your attention all of the fun and exciting details that rose out of our editor's playtime.
Japanese LaunchIt wouldn't be an official system launch without a firsthand retelling of the experience of grabbing a system. Our Japanese editors hit the streets to take photos of lines outside the stores, and while you might not see mobs of people forming to grab a system, the other thing you might not see is a DSi out in the wild: if you didn't preorder you're probably left emptyhanded. Hey, at least you can play with the store display.
Camera Hands-on TestOne of the biggest features of the new Nintendo DSi is its built-in cameras: one on the front, and one on the hinge. Also built into the new system is some incredibly fun and sophisticated software that enables users to manipulate the photo even before it's taken.
Bend the image to make people frown, stretch out their chins to make them look fat. You can even turn on overlays that'll follow the subjects' faces: put on glasses and a mustache, and even when they move the game will track their face and keep the accessories in perspective. It's a pretty cool effect and needs to be seen in action to understand.
DSi Shop and Internet BrowserOne of the big bulletpoints of the Nintendo DSi features list is the brand new Opera web browser, now a part of the package as a free download on the DSi Shop Channel. With the DSi Shop, you'll be able to download free and premium content to the DSi's internal storage. The first available product on the storefront is the Opera Browser.
The original Opera browser for the Nintendo DS and DS Lite was a less than stellar affair, and one would hope that the DSi experience would be a much smoother one.
That one would be wrong. Read our hands-on with the DSi browser and you'll see how well (poorly) the new Opera browser performs on the new system.
Music PlayerNintendo has gone on the record to say that, with the DSi, it's not the company's intentions to release the best music player. But it seems that what's included in the DSi system is fun nonetheless.
The DSi does not support MP3 files; instead, it reads and plays back files in the AAC format. When the AAC file is in the DSi and being played back, you can manipulate the audio with all sorts of fun effects. Check out what we mean in our hands-on with the player.
Photo ShootOf course, you want to know what the system looks like, so time was spent showing off the system in and out of its box, opened and closed, on and off, and with all sorts of interesting things running on the bigger screens.
Interface VideosWith the new system comes new inherent abilities, including a fresh operating system where you can select all these new, inherent abilities and features. Our Japanese editor takes you through all the touch-screen functions to show you just how different the menus are from the original Nintendo DS.
"
-ign.com
