Today Nintendo released an new portable game console, the Nintendo DSi. Nintendo is well-known for introducing three iterations of their portable consoles – we had the Gameboy, Gameboy Colour and Gameboy Pocket followed by Gameboy Advance, Gameboy Advance SP, and Gameboy Micro – all leading the way to the Nintendo DS generation of systems. The original Nintendo DS was launched in the fall of 2004 with the Nintendo DS Lite appearing in 2006 with a smaller design and better battery life. Now, in 2009, we have the Nintendo DSi – a much more feature-rich portable, but at a higher cost. The DSi has been introduced at a price of $200 CAD while the DS Lite will remain at $140 CAD, where it has been for some time – are the new features worthy of the extra $60 and what has provoked Nintendo to choose this price point?

The DSi has new features such as the ability to play downloaded games and DSi-only games (to come in the future) along with new hardware features such as a second camera and larger screens – for a more complete list check out About.com’s comparison. I have been reading a lot of postings and commentary about the DSi and I would have to say that a lot of people think the system is great, but definitely not worth the extra $60. Arguments against paying the premium include the poor quality of the cameras, the lack of a Gameboy Advance slot, no exclusive DSi games at this time, and poor battery life. Nintendo may have been hoping for a lot of hype, similar to what the Wii received, however, it the North American launch has been largely uneventful with units still available at many retailers.

So now we have Nintendo selling two portable systems, the DS Lite and the DSi, both of which play the same games, but have a relatively large price difference. Undoubtedly the cost to build the DS Lite has decreased substantially over the last couple of years and the cost of adding these extra features was probably quite low so why sell at a such a premium? Let’s forget this for the time being and switch to a company that does things differently, Apple.

Apple has this uncanny ability to keep products secret until highly publicized announcements followed by almost immediate availability in mass quantities. The difference between Nintendo and Apple is that Apple releases new products with better specifications at an equal or even lower price than the existing product. The old products are then sold at a discounted price until there is no more stock. Apple introduces new products so well and with great success, so what is the deal with Nintendo?

In my opinion, Nintendo is not concerned about an initial surge of sales and prefers to have longer and more stable sales numbers throughout the life of the product. Apple introduces new products, it seems, a couple of times a year whereas Nintendo uses a life-cycle of two to three years. At $200, Nintendo will still sell a substantial number of systems to early adopters and fanboys, while other consumers just looking to play DS games may opt for the DS Lite – either way Nintendo will be generating revenue.

My initial viewpoint, before writing this piece, was that Nintendo is really missing an opportunity, but I now believe that Nintendo is trying to do what they do best – sustained sales over a long period of time. Apple’s ability to innovate and release new products frequently works for them and maybe the premium price of the DSi over the DS Lite fits right into Nintendo’s plan.