With the emergence of the Nintendo DSi, comes the Nintendo DSi shop. They have invented something called DSi Ware which are games that are downloadable for your device (a little like downloading music from iTunes). The question is of course, is the service and the games any good? For the purposes of this review, I have broken it down into categories. How it works, first impressions, games, and overall opinion.
How it works
To buy a game via the shop, you have to have points. Currently, any DSi’s purchased before the end of March come with a 1000 points free. If you have missed out on this offer or wish to buy new points, they can be bought from retail outlets, online, or with a credit card via the Nintendo itself. They cost £7 for a 1000 points.
First impressions
Once I connected with the shop, I was presented with three options: Recommended titles, Important information and Start Shopping. Opting for the latter brought me to the Main menu screen which gave me five other options: DSi Ware, Add Nintendo DSi points, 
Shopping Guide, Settings, DSi menu, and the Welcome screen. It took me a little while to work out that to be able to see all the games you pressed DSi Ware, as this came across as a title of the screen rather than an option. This is not a profound criticism, as it is conceivable that many will just see this for what it is and press it, but for me it needs to be clearer.
The Shopping guide screen is fairly useful. Its copy has been written both concisely and accurately, and tells a user all they need to know about the shop and DSi ware. If I have one criticism, is that you cannot navigate to parental controls from this help screen. You have to leave the DSi shop to the main menu, and select System Settings and do it from there. Other than that I have to say that once you have a quick glance over the shopping guide, you should be able to use it effectively. All in all, very good.
The Settings menu also brings up useful options. From here you can link your DSi account to your Club Nintendo Account which grants you more benefits. You can also check your account activity, and see your point balance. The Settings menu shows the information clearly and is easy to understand. One very minor criticism is that if you use the back button to leave a screen, instead of taking you back to the Settings menu, it takes you back a step further to the Main menu. To access another Settings option you have to select the Settings menu and start all over again.
The DSi Ware option is what the shop is all about. This gives you the option to choose games by cost or search for titles.
Games
The games are not as big as the titles you buy in the high street, but they still offer good gameplay for what they are. They are also cheaper. In short is a trade off: Cost over complexity.
The games are broken down into four cost categories.
- Free – No point cost, also no games. This section contained two applications that are already pre installed on a DSi- The browser, and the Flipnote Studio.
- 200 – cost 200 points to download
- 500 - cost 500 points to download
- Premium – cost 800 points or more to download
By selecting a game from the menu, the DSi displays what the game is about, screenshots, age rating, and an option to buy. This is all very smooth and works well. The games complexity and type vary according to cost.
The premium games tend to have better graphics and be more complex, while the lower point cost ones tend to be something that you do to pass the time, like solitaire on a PC.
New games are added all the time and as they are exclusive titles, the only way to play them is via the shop.
The downside to games is that though they can be saved to an SD card, they cannot be played from one. So once the memory is filled, games have to be deleted so new ones can be added. This I imagine, will be a real chore in the future.
Overall
The DSi shop is a good addition. The games are on the whole well put together, and the titles varied. The idea is also on the money: Why go to a shop or online and buy a game when you can simply download and play? The downside is that you cannot play the game from an SD card. This means that chopping and changing games from the systems memory will needed, once the memory is filled.
In the future, it is not inconceivable that most games will be bought in a similar fashion to how music is bought now. Which for the consumer will be more convenient as they can be played now, rather than when a shop is open, or when they arrive in the post.
In short the idea is sound, the excecution needs a little tweaking for it really to catch on.
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