That's right the new Nintendo DSi that was speculated earlier in the week on the 8th, among other places, has been confirmed by Nintendo. The DSi, dubbed the DSi LL, will hit Japan next month.

Obviously someone spilled the beans over at Nintendo and they weren't happy about it because Nintendo had this to say when asked about the rumours:

Quote
"Our company isn't doing any interviews [about this]. We think it's a speculative article."

Since then they have gone onto confirm and announce the new DS giving full details of the units specifications. That 4" screen? It's actually 4.2"!! That means the DSi LL has got an inch over the current DSi in terms of screen size. There are also a host of other nice features like an increased battery life, DSi LL gets 13 to 17 hours on the lowest setting, 9 to 11 hours on mid-range brightness and 4 to 5 on max brightness, and greater viewing angles so groups can now view the DSi LL's screens simultaneously. The final added bonus the DSi LL gets is a bigger stylus. This new stylus, unfortunately, cannot be stored in the current stylus slot.

To me this all adds up to the new DSi LL not only being targeted at older gamers, the bigger stylus, larger screen and colour names : Wine Red, but also at home use in general. The fact that the new stylus cannot fit in the DSi LL means that you can only use it when you are at home, or risk losing it, while the ability for groups to now view the DSi's screens invokes images of friends or families sitting around playing the DSi LL together. The unit is also far bulkier and bigger than the DSi and even the images on Nintendo's own product page have the new DSi LL sitting around on the kitchen table.

The official release date is November 21 and the price is 20,000 yen, almost 2,000 yen more than the current model DSi. To me this price rise was expected, I mean it's a bigger screen so quite possibly production costs may go up per unit. Consumers will get a bit of relief from Nintendo though, as the new package will come bundled with three DSiWare games: two Brain Age games and a yet to be released dictionary program. These games seem to further enhance this older/home focus of the new DSi LL.

Still no word on a worldwide release but if the DSi is anything to go on then a worldwide release could happen early next year. For a full comparison between the DSi LL, DSi and DS Lite you can head on over to this Nintendo page but it's in Japanese so it's kind of hard to navigate.

Once again this post was originally done for the good folks at The 8-th Circuit.