Early and slightly different information from Nikkei.net and a print article reveal Nintendo has a new model of the Nintendo DS. A hardware revision scheduled to come out later this year in Japan add a camera, music playback, and stronger wireless capabilities with the ability to connect to information terminals. The internal camera will supposedly be used with future games.
A Nintendo DS camera accessory first came out last year when it came bundled with Face Training. So far two software titles to make use of the camera, Sega’s upcoming Shiseido collaboration Project Beauty is the other. A Nintendo DS /Game Boy Advance music player was also on the market in Japan known as the Play-Yan and Nintendo MP3 Player in Europe. Both of these devices required an external SD card to store music. It is unclear if the new Nintendo DS will have internal memory or use need an SD card to carry Mega Man 9 MP3s.
These features may make the Nintendo DS a more viable competitor on the multimedia front against Sony’s PSP, but the Nintendo DS made its mark as a gaming/brain training tool. And the DS is great for gaming I guess it would be nice not to carry an MP3 player around, but this new Nintendo DS would be much more appealing if it has the rumored larger screens, internal flash memory, and these mysterious “information terminals” let users download classic Game Boy games for under 500 Wii Points.
Images courtesy of Nintendo.
