Nintendo Announces DS Lite!!!

[nmaster64]

Turns out all those rumors about a DS redesign weren't hogwash afterall. That's right folks, Nintendo has just put out the first details on the sleeker DS Lite, images included.

"Nintendo President Satoru Iwata today announced Nintendo DS Lite, a slimmer version of the best-selling Nintendo DS™. Also featuring brighter screens, Nintendo DS Lite will launch in Japan in March. Nintendo DS Lite will be less than two-thirds the size of the original Nintendo DS and more than 20 percent lighter.
Nintendo DS has enjoyed extremely strong sales in Japan and around the world, selling more than 14.4 million units worldwide. The Japanese sell-through of the existing Nintendo DS hardware exceeded 5 million within 13 months, which made Nintendo DS the fastest-selling video game system there.
Nintendo will announce more information about the availability of Nintendo DS Lite in North America and other territories in the future."

Details

Official Name: DS Lite
Sale Date: March 2nd, 2006 (JPN Only)
Size/Dimensions: 133mm x 73.9mm x 21.5mm (to compare, original is 148.7 x 84.7 x 28. 9)
Weight: 218g (previous was 275g)
Price: ~$150
Battery Life: 15-18 hours on lowest brightness / 5-8 on brightest setting
Features rearranged button, mic, indicators, and stylus positions.
Four different brightness settings for the improved backlight.

A press release of sorts is available here, although English speakers will have to make do with a rough translation.

{Many more pictures (25+) available in full post here.}

UPDATE (2/10/06): Nintendo's Japan site has revealed some slighter nicer shots of the DS Lite

UPDATE (2/9/06): New real-life pictures have been revealed courtesy the FCC!

And sure enough, we found confirmation in the revealed DS Lite manual that the brightness control is in the bottom left corner of the DS Menu, what was previously just an on/off switch for the backlight. See below:



That brightness setting may not seem to important, but if you can deal with it on low, you apparently see around a 10 hour longer battery life!

"When fully charged, the battery will last from 15-19 hours on the
lowest screen brightness setting, depending on the type of game
activity...On the brightest setting, the battery life is 5-8 hours."

You can get a few more pictures from the FCC page, here.

whoa thats pretty cool although not very different

[Sepharite]

Not bad... not bad.

Are there any side view?

i think theres only those 3 shots released.

im definetely buying this =)

[bignds]

Damn straight, im def buying this. It seems the mic has moved, to a place which seems awkward compared to the original design. I cant see the power button any where. But overall, the thing looks alot more attractive and damn am i buying it.
Im going to import since nintendo have a vendetta with the right side of the world










(England of course).

whoa i just noticed the mic is right smack dab in the middle 0_o interesting...

and wheres the power button?

[bignds]

Cheers for repeating me :D

eh i never read what you say cause you're worthless

[bignds]

haha, yeah, i can see your eyes are rather fixated on your avatar.

how did you know =P

anyway i need to see a pic of someone holding it to actually grasp how much smaller this is... just looking at these pics you'd think they just made it a little sexier, not so much on teh size.