Nintendo DSiWare: Download games and apps for your DSi

By Jeff Bakalar on 26 March 2009, 12:09pm

Nintendo has announced the final piece of the puzzle with its new revamped handheld, the DSi. The DSi Shop, which will go live on 5 April, will offer downloadable games and applications that you can store on the console's 256MB of internal storage or on an SD card.

When Nintendo visited our US colleagues a few weeks ago, it showed off some DSiWare titles such as WarioWare Snapped!, a collection of mini-games designed for use with the DSi's cameras. Snapped! has you doing silly tasks such as moving your head to dodge objects, and it watches your mouth's movements to re-enact eating a sandwich. We imagine there will be dozens more titles that make use of the unit's cameras and microphone.

We also got to see a title called Moving Memo that lets you create a sort of flipbook animation. There have even been rumours about a Virtual Console for Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games on the DSi Shop (which would explain the absence of such games on the Wii's Virtual Console).

Games and applications on the DSi Shop will range in price from free to more than 2,000 points. It's not confirmed, but we would expect points to cost the same as at the Wii Virtual Console, where a card with 2,000 points will set you back £15, so a 1,000-point game will cost you £7.50. As a promotion, anyone who buys a DSi before 5 October of this year will get 1,000 free points to spend in the DSi Shop.

While a list of games and applications hasn't been finalised yet, you will be able to grab a free Web browser for your DSi straight away. The Opera-developed software is reportedly more robust, offering a better experience over the cartridge-based software we saw in the past.

The Nintendo DSi will cost £150, and is available in either black or blue. Read our full DSi review here.