To XL or not to XL?
Posted on Mar 30, 2010 by Lori in DS
I recently went to the DSi XL launch event in Toronto (okay—it was a week and a half ago) to see what all the fuss was about.
Now, I was actually looking forward to getting my hot little hands on this newest iteration of the the DS line. We currently have only one DS Lite and, since we had to borrow Chris‘ for our Pokémon HeartGold/SoulSilver review (and we skipped over the whole DSi to-do), the idea of one-upping my husband in both size and features was a tempting one.
The reps at the event said that the screen was 93% bigger than its predecessor, and it shows. While I had bought myself a clunky case for my DSL so as not to lose track of it in my purse, the DSi XL has a good size and heft to it—it gave my DS Lite a bit of a complex, truth be told. I spent a little too much time playing with the camera, as I had not previously had a chance to do so; however, I’m not quite sure that I’m the target demographic for this feature (and, for that matter, I’m not sure that the target demographic of the DSi XL is, either). But it was kind of cool to have a couple of Brain Age titles pre-loaded on the machine (and a little humbling when I learned how stupid I really am after playing them), and the browser capabilities were a new and welcome feature to me.
But now come the drawbacks, of which I found two right off the bat (and one later)…
For one, it comes with the little stylus that you can stick in the side (like the DSL and DSi). Fine. However, though the DSi XL also comes with that big pen-sized novelty stylus we’ve all heard about, there is actually no place in the side of the unit where you can store it. And when you’re as forgetful as I am (and already have so much crap in your bag), keeping it separate just sounds like all kinds of annoying. And don’t start with the attaching it to the XL with a lanyard suggestion. I HATE those things. So it’s basically useless—I’ll just end up sticking with the little stylus, which is no improvement.
Secondly, the screen size is nice. But they were demoing The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks on the unit, and it really brought home the fact that Nintendo has kind of killed the buzz of all the shovelware developers out there. Bigger screens highlight crappy graphics. You can’t really say it any other way. And if you have an older DS title that you just love despite its rudimentary look, you’ll not want to play it on the XL—it’ll just make your soul cry.
Finally, for those of you with a DSi who are looking to transfer your downloaded games to the DSi XL, you can’t. Okay. Whatever. I can kind of see Nintendo’s point in that they don’t want mad piracy going on, but still—there are ways around it. If you’re NINTENDO, and you knew this might be a possibility, you might want to do some planning. Unfortunately, this may keep potential converts from making the upgrade. And when I was at the event, I met MANY people who fell into that category.
So there have been a bunch of people maligning Nintendo for releasing the XL so close to their announcement of the 3DS (or whatever it’ll end up being called). Now, I’ve heard that the announcement was due to press leaks in Japan, but I’d rather believe that Nintendo was working in the interest of transparency. You see, without knowing the price point of this yet-to-be-released iteration (or even a release date!), it’s possible that it may just be so much of a step beyond that some consumers may feel that the XL suits their needs well enough. And there are those of us, myself included, who never got on the DSi bandwagon and, as a result, don’t care that the downloaded games aren’t transferable.
Personally, I think that there is a market for the DSi XL, and it’s not just old people. Nintendo is coming out with enough quality titles that the adoption rate for the DS should enjoy a steady enough increase. There are more and more people in my age bracket (25-35) who, if they aren’t big gamers, are looking to test the waters with a handheld unit and, if they’re not iPhone-tards, the DSi XL looks to be a good fit. Ultimately, it’s a good product with good features and, for only twenty bucks more than a DSi (and under $200 CDN), it’s worth a gander. I’m kinda still on the fence about it, though…
