Surprise: Nintendo DSi on sale in Japan

By Matt Hickey on 03 November 2008, 10:34am

Rumour had it the Nintendo DSi, a new, slimmer version of the DS Lite, would go on sale first in Japan in early summer of next year. But in a surprise move, Nintendo has said the recently announced handheld game system is ready to ship.

According to Michelle Wyman, a spokeswoman for Nintendo, the DSi went on sale on Saturday in Japan for ¥18,900 yen, which is about £120.

The device does away with the Game Boy Advance card slot to make room for a smaller footprint and new features such as a VGA camera and an external camera rumoured to be 2 megapixels. All told, though, it's pretty similar to the current version of the DS Lite. We should expect to see it in Europe sometime next year, though how much it will cost, we don't yet know.