Nintendo: DS Lite's Future Uncertain

Following the announcement of the DSi last week, Nintendo is unclear on the future of its current handheld hardware, the DS Lite.

Speaking on the subject Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America's VP of sales and marketing, said in a recent interview, "Right now we’re still working through what the strategy's going to be here. But we think that there's huge untapped potential for the DS Lite. Because when you’ve got only one in every five households in the U.S., compared to one in every two in Japan, it says there's potential."

It looks like the justification for keeping the Lite on the market would be pricing. "I don't know what the pricing is going to be (for the DSi) here, but certainly it is going to be a premium over what our current DS is priced at", she said.

In Japan, the DS Lite currently costs ¥16,800 (£93, or €120), while the DSi will cost ¥18,900 (£102, or €129) when it launches on November 1st. The difference over there hardly amounts to a "premium", so it will be interesting to see how Nintendo differentiates the two versions of the DS in the U.S. and Europe.

^{Source: Wired}