Pink things are fun to play with. This isn’t too difficult to understand; it’s really not much of a revelation either, I suppose.
I really like playing with mine. My favorite thing to do, in fact, is whip out my pink thing and start playing with it whenever I have a few minutes. Not just at home — at work too, in the bathroom, in the office, at lunch, even waiting in line for movie tickets. (And, of course, in the theater before the show starts.)
My pink thing is surprisingly heavy, though not too much so, and glossy too. Most people admire it, though some probably think I’m too old to obviously get so much pleasure from playing with it so frequently. (These people have no sense of humor or discernment.)
The endless hours of joy I get from my pink thing, turning it on, poking it, prodding it, delighting in the surprises it ceaselessly delivers … I just can’t say enough good things about my pink thing.
Hey, you know what?
I like it so much I’ve even put some pictures here so you can see why I love it so.
Here’s what it looks like just before I start playing with it.
…and here’s what it looks like when it’s ready to go.
Of course it’s a DS Lite in Coral Pink. What the hell were you thinking?
Nintendo has done a damned fine job, overall, with its hardware releases. They seem to understand that their audience is pretty wide; the DS series games are loaded with the kinds of titles you expect for video games, but there are some surprisingly intelligent inclusions, hand-held adventures that require considerably more intelligence and interaction from the player than point-n-shoot capabilites.
Some of this probably has to do with the evolution of the hardware. The touchscreen on the DS is well-done and responsive, and both displays have very bright backlighting, user-adjustable to four levels. The 64-bit graphics are clean and the stereo sound is much better than you’d expect given the small speakers and minimal separation between them.
The DS will also integrate with Nintendo’s Wii, and was obvously designed by a company that knows the unit will be purchased by many people who more or less literally grew up with the Game Boy. While there may not be a lot of overlap in titles available for the DS versus its only real competition, the Sony PSP, it’s the DS that keeps moving steadily off the shelves.
No wonder, too; while the DS will play every Game Boy Advance game ever made*, the PSP will only play titles that run in the PSP … and nowhere else. (Why? Because Sony didn’t have a couple decades’ worth of titles in handheld units already before releasing the PSP.**)
Brand loyalty isn’t just about having a given toy because it’s made by a given manufacturer. Brand loyalty has to be earned, and overall Nintendo has done a good job of earning customer loyalty, certainly in the handheld arena if nowhere else. The DS Lite is a well-engineered machine that shows a lot of thought and effort, something perhaps Sony (still hurting with its second major mistake, the too-early release of PS3) would do well to pay attention to.
UPDATE: Sony’s blaming decline in profits on the fact that they are selling the PS3 — a machine that retails new for $600 — for less than it costs to manufacture it. If that’s it’s below-lowball price tag, what’s the actual retail value of the damned thing?
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* But not GB Color or original GB games, so hang on to your GBA SP if you want to play any of those older carts. They won’t work in the DS.
** Sony seems to be releasing all their game hardware too soon and with insufficient support. You can have an Xbox 360 and a Wii, with about $50 left over, for the price of a PS3, and the Xbox has equally-good graphics, much better integrated networking, stability, and a far richer depth of titles; plus, the Wii is just a hell of a lot of fun.
18:16 on January 30th, 2007
Wow Warren, this topic just cracked me up (Pink Thing plot), that was pretty smart. Nice laugh made my day, thanks
I too have a pink thing… Well it isn’t pink, its more darkish black. I bought it around a month ago, but theres acouple of faults I find with Nintendo DS’s.
History of where I bought my DS: Gamestop. Horrible, no? I bought it NEW, apparently. Oh I also bought Mario Cart. Pretty fun game, got hooked. Anyways, I didn’t check anything till about a day later (Had company), and by looking at the box, it looked as if it had ‘not’ been tampered with… that is, until I played it.
Findings: A meir list of issues with my DS lite. First of all, about 4 pixels on the top screen, were stuck, or known as ‘dead’. I was outraged about this. Then it got worse as I tried to play. First hour of just fooling around with the DS, it was fine, ran perfectly, except for the pixels, until I turned it off, and it had saved none of my data. I had to keep resetting the system. Telling them my name, colour I like, etc. I decided to take it back, but with the company I had the day before, their daughter, and or my neice, decided to use my receipt to make artwork, so it was ruined. I went back to gamestop, told them about my defected DS, and they told me I couldn’t return it. So I had to file a repair order with Nintendo, and I finally shipped it out today. Within 3-4 days, I should have a new working DS.
Conclusion: After doing some research, most DS’s bought have alot of pixel issues, so people send them back and Nintendo states that fixing these pixels will cost to much money, so they decided to send them to stores, who will sell dead pixeled DS, ex. Gamestop. I don’t think Nindento will get it through their head that selling faulty items, will drastically reduce sales. But other then that, I find DS much more fun then Sony’s PSP. Funny how people debated if DS would win against Sony and most people choose Sony, and here DS’s everywhere are sold out, and stores are overflowing with PSP’s. I have both and my PSP sits on my nightstand collecting dust, while I eagerly await to play my DS.
Its very true Sony enjoys selling their products way to early, instead of taking the time and making a good item, then trying to make a fast 10 bucks. Basically, Sony enjoys rushing their products, then decide to not make good games for their system’s, then go about making more systems, that are worth half quality, while Nintendo rocks our Socks.
8:35 on February 7th, 2007
What a horror story … though I think I’d blame GameStop, not Nintendo, for selling factory rejects as new. Where I live the local choices are the ’Marts (we get both K and Wal, joy joy), EB Games and Hastings.
I got a GBA SP from Hastings a couple years back, not too long after DS v.1 hit the market, which sent GBA prices plummeting (well, $80 new isn’t cheap, but it beats the hell out of $130). The first one had a blown pixel in the display — a single blown pixel, mind you, but I brought it in and exchanged it anyway. Since then no trouble.
My DS Lite saga began in a similar way. I started with an Onyx unit but noticed a yellow blotch in the middle of the upper screen, one that grew the longer the system stayed on. Brought that in for an exchange too, and now have a Big Pink Thing instead.
I expect technology to fail from time to time, and actually think the troubles I had with my GB’s were fairly unusual. Single blown pixels can happen randomly, and the yellow blotch was faint and did not appear until the DS had been on for a while, so I can see how it would have made it through Nintendo QC.
I’m really getting a kick out of the titles the DS has. In two weeks of ownership I’ve picked up four carts — a game-consuming short-time record for me — and divide my time between Hotel Dusk, Sudoku, Contact and Phoenix Wright.
I’m glad I didn’t have the troubles you did in working out an exchange, and probably won’t end up buying a PSP at all. For the $250, I could have a Wii instead, and while it might get bullied around a little by my 360 if I leave them alone too long together, I think it’d be able to hold its own.
16:23 on May 21st, 2007
[...] You might have gathered a while back that I’m a dedicated Nintendo system user. You’d probably be wrong about that, actually; I never owned the original NES. My first actual Nintendo purchase was a Game Boy. I’ve been a happy consumer of handhelds since then, going from the GB to a GB Pocket, Color, GBA, GBA SP and finally a DS Lite.* Never got into PSP and still am not interested even though Sony’s dropped the price by about 50% on the unit. [...]