Launching in Japan on November 1st and Europe in spring 09, yesterday Nintendo announced their long rumoured update to the ever popular DS, the DSi (adding an i, how inventive…).

There are a plethora of upgrades on the original:

• A set of bigger screens, going from 3 to 3.25 inches.
• Two cameras, an external 3.0 megapixel and a internal 0.3 megapixel one.
• An SD card slot for much easier storage expansion (although the current max is 2GB)
• An integrated web browser
• Improved audio playback (which lead to the Daily Mail getting all excited, announcing Nintendo are taking on the iPod… oh dear…)
• Thickness decreased by 12%, aided by the removal of the GBA slot. (so probably say goodbye to quirky hardware add-ons)

Nintendo also announced DSiWare a download service for add-on content and full games, with games being playable off a SD card. Which seems it may be playing right into the hands of the R4 developers. Hopefully Nintendo has some good copy protection.

World broadcasting icon BBC has announced that they have secured a deal with Nintendo, aiming to make it possible for people to find traces of television in their Wii. More specifically the deal will let Wii owners to use the BBC iPlayer with their waggle.

From the BBC News site…

The iPlayer on the Wii is currently being tested and the BBC expects to release more test versions in late 2008. An early version of the service is available from 9 April. It is only available in the UK to licence-fee payers.

The iPlayer will be accessible via the internet channel on the Wii console. The BBC said a message would be sent to Wii owners to alert them to its availability.

The news comes as the BBC releases the latest viewing figures for the iPlayer…

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