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Nintendo DS

Nintendo announced their latest handheld system today at the E3 entertainment expo, it’s called the Nintendo DS (for now), and it is looking mighty cool if I do say so myself.

The system has two screens, one of which is touch-sensitive and can be used to interact with your games via a stylus or your finger. An app called Pictochat will allow you to draw on the screen, and type messages to people around you with an on-screen keyboard, and the built-in Wi-Fi networking.

Because of the Wi-Fi, you will be able to play multiplayer games with others around you with no wires, and even over the internet if you are near an access point. If the developer chooses, you can even stream the game to other devices, so you could play multiplayer games with only a single game cartridge.

The system also has a built-in microphone that will allow games to take advantage of voice recognition of some kind.

The DS is fully compatible with all GBA games, GBC games, and original black-and-white gameboy games, giving it a library of thousands of games as soon as it launches.

A few of the games that are already in development for the system however are:

• a New Super Mario Bros. game
• WarioWare DS
• Mario Kart DS
• a new Metroid game
• Super Mario 64 remake
• Animal Crossing DS

And others. Those are just the Nintendo developed games.

All of the games make some sort of unique use of the two screens (and touch-sensitive screen). For instance in Mario Kart, one screen shows the race, and the other shows a map of the track, and a realtime ranking of who is in the lead.

Even with all the power and screens of this system, Nintendo says the battery will last 10 hours, just like the GBA. Which would be really nice. Both screens are backlit and the battery is rechargeable, so at least they have learned from their mistakes with the original GBA.

I’m very much looking forward to seeing what Nintendo can do with this system… Hopefully it won’t be too big to really be portable, and the battery life will be good. Both very important features of a handheld system.

Gamespot has a good write-up of some hands on experiences with the system while at E3.

*waits first in line*