@Van
“The DSi was not an upgrade path for you DS lite owners.
Many gamers often trade in their old model to get the new one at a reduced cost. From the manufacturer’s point of view, this is good as existing customers are less tempted to go to other platforms.
“It amazes me how selfish older gamers are in criticising Nintendo for their updates not being worth it, when new gamers are coming into the hobby all the time, and are likely to go for the most upto date system, especially when it was only 20 euros more for the extra features Nintendo added with trying to keep up with the times.”
In the UK, the DS Lite cost £99 and the DSi cost £150 – so there was a 50% mark-up. That’s an awful big price jump.
I traded my DS Lite to get one, so I did get a decent discount. However, even with that, it wasn’t good value for money. Yes, there were new features, but they had taken away the ability to play GBA games and had region-locked the software. As a pure games machine, the DSi and Lite offered essentially the same.
The DS Lite continued to sell well and the second-hand trade has been much stronger that the DSi (so I’ve been told). People *did* look at what they were getting for how much. I take the point about your nephew and I’m sure there are many like him, but there were an awful lot who weren't - and that does include younger gamers.
“If you felt the DS Lite lacked too many features, perhaps you shouldn't have bought it in the first place? I doubt the biggest buyers of the new handhelds, the parents, will give it as much thought though.”
Many apologies, but I only skim-read the preview of my post and didn’t pick up my error. I wasn’t griping about the DS Lite – that was the first DS model I bought – but that the Dsi didn’t offer a whole lot more for the money. At £99, the DS Lite was an absolute steal – the same couldn’t be said for the DSi at £150.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
