The brand new Nintendo DSi was announced and is being released in Japan first on November 1, 2008.   Soon to follow will be release in North America, Europe and Australia in 2009.

I will admit that I’m a bit disappointed it’s not going to be made available here before Christmas here in the states, since we were planning on buying DS Lites for our kids this year to replace their gameboys.  It  seems a little silly of me to do now when the new DSi will be coming out shortly after.  I may have to rethink my holiday shopping plans and come up with a new theme for under the tree.

Enough of my holiday shopping woes, let’s take a look at what the major differences are going to be between the current DS Lites and the upcoming DSi.  The first big difference is extra goodies on board.  You’ll have a built in camera, MP3 player, improved speakers, dual touch screens with the ability to edit photos on those touch screens,  SD card slot, slightly bigger screen size, built in Opera browser, and the ability to visit the DSi store to download games that you can then store in your DSi and play anytime.

Wow, that was a lot of stuff. One thing that is also changing is that there will no longer be a Gameboy Advance slot. You may have heard me complain in the past that they stopped making Gameboy Advance games and all four of my kids still have GBAs. It was frustrating for them that the only place they could get games was in the used section at Game Stop, (which is why I was planning on buying the DS Lites this year over holilday break.)

So, for those who have an extensive collection of Gameboy Advance games, they’re about to become even more obsolete. At least you could still enjoy using them in the DS Lite, if you upgrade to the shiny new DSi you have to start all over with a new set of games. Another thing I should mention quickly is that you’re going to be replacing any adapters you may already have, as that will also be different.

Color is probably not important, assuming that they will make just as many skins and covers for the DSi as they do for the Lite. However, the DSi is only being released in black and white to start off with. I sort of liked the variety the GBA and the Lite had with different colors and special editions, so I’m hoping that’s a tradition that Nintendo will carry on and we’ll see some of those in the future with the DSi.

I’m sure everyone is wondering about the price tag. Back in the spring the DS Lite price dropped from 179 to 149, and I’ve seen it in a few places for 139 and even 129 on mega sale. From everything that I’ve read this morning it looks like the price tag on the DSi is going to be that familiar $179, but I am not 100% positive on that at this moment.

So far that’s all I’ve found about the upcoming DSi, if you know more or come across a good video about it, let me know. Leave a comment or feel free to email me.