Size Certainly Matters With Nintendo's DSi XL

Photo by Jim Merithew for Wired.com

When other companies bob, Nintendo weaves. As it s rivals attempt to make their handheld game machines smaller and more portable, Nintendo hits us with the DSi XL, a supersized version of its pocket player. DSi XL, currently available in Japan and set to be released in America in the first quarter of 2010, is the size of a paperback book. It’s also about 30 percent heavier than the DS Lite. Why? Because the unit’s two screens are much, much larger — 4.2 inches diagonally, compared to the DS Lite’s 3.25-inches.
Why did they supersize it? Nintendo says the massive screens (with wider viewing angles) are in part aimed at senior citizens who don’t want to squint while playing Sudoku. But granny typically plays from home, where portability isn’t really a concern. If you do the bulk of your DS playing on your couch instead of on the bus, you likely won’t mind the tradeoff.
The larger screen isn’t just some frivolous purchase — it’s completely awesome. Seriously, we can’t imagine going back to smaller screened DSi. The screens have the same resolution as previous models, but the blown-up images look fantastic. It’s much easier on the eyes, even if finely detailed 2-D art does look a bit pixelized on occasion. It’s less obvious with 3-D graphics.

Beyond pure visual splendor, it’s also easier to interact with the DSi’s touchscreen. And although it features a standard stylus that stores inside the unit, DSi XL also comes with a comfortable pen-sized stylus that’s much easier to hold. (There’s nowhere to store it, though.)
At all of its five levels of screen brightness, XL has better battery life than the regular DSi: an additional one to three hours, depending on the setting, for a total of four to 17 hours. That’s still not quite as good as the older DS Lite’s five to 19 hours, though.
In terms of functionality, the XL isn’t different from the standard DSi: Besides playing games, you can download games from the DSi Shop, browse the web, listen to music and take pictures with the unit’s dual front- and rear-facing cameras.
When it’s released in the United States in early 2010, the DSi XL will come pre-loaded with downloadable apps. Nintendo hasn’t said which, but the Japanese version comes with a web browser, an animation program called Moving Memo, two bite-sized Brain Age games and a dictionary.
Getting a few apps for free should help to soften the sticker shock: At roughly $200, DSi XL is the most expensive model in Nintendo’s portable lineup.
If you haven’t yet traded up from a DS Lite to the DSi, you might want to wait until the XL comes out. If you’ve already upgraded, the benefits are less obvious at first — but we bet that once you try XL for yourself, you’ll want one too.
WIRED Big, gorgeous screens and comfy Sharpie-sized stylus prove it: Size matters. Better battery life than DSi.
TIRED Blown-up art looks a bit pixelized. Where are we supposed to store that giant stylus?

Xbox 360 Slim Is Leaner, Meaner, Quieter Machine

When the Xbox 360 hit in 2005 it promised to revolutionize gaming. Microsoft got most of the way there (conceptually), but the original 360 hardware wasn’t without its … quirks.
Enter Microsoft’s upgrade/redo, the Xbox 360 S. Not only is the chassis slimmer (hence that weird, floating “S”), but it’s packed with a lot of the extras that used to be sold separately. The most dramatic change takes place under the hood. Redmond swapped out the 360’s power-hungry setup with a much more economical (e.g. smaller) motherboard and an integrated CPU/GPU/eDRAM chip. On top of the spatial benefits, this means that the 360’s operating volume — normally a hissy, Harrier-esque din — has been greatly reduced. The difference was almost immediately noticeable. While streaming Nextflix, we no longer had to turn up the volume to drown out the sound of the fan, and the act of the disc drive cycling up no longer made the doors on our entertainment center rattle.
The benefits of this engineering go beyond operating volume. Paired with the console’s newly integrated 802.11n, bevy of USB 2.0 ports, and a (finally) built-in optical audio port, the 360 S actually feels like the living room-ready entertainment powerhouse Microsoft promised five years ago. Playing DVDs and/or downloaded video seems like a much more natural extension of the console’s capabilities (though we’d still love some Blu-ray love), and the army of USB ports proves nifty for charging gadgets. The aesthetic impact is palpable too. Now that so many features are tastefully built in, the console finally looks like a serious, streamlined home theater device rather than a whirring, blinking gadget with countless peripheral flagella.
To be fair, this revamp isn’t quite the second coming either. In vying to be taken seriously, the 360 S has gotten rid of old favorites like customizable faceplates. Also, the power brick is back (though it has gotten smaller), and the included 250-GB hard drive is still proprietary (and not backwards compatible with older 360s). And, of course, there’s the largest elephant in the room: If you already have a 360, there probably isn’t a huge incentive to upgrade.
In the end this isn’t all bad. Microsoft ultimately set out to make a better (and Kinect-ready) version of the 360, and they’ve largely succeeded. The end result isn’t necessarily worth, say, drowning last year’s model in the tub and rushing to Best Buy. But, if you’ve yet to join the Xbox fold — or at least want an inexpensive, quiet, gaming/DVD/Netflix/Hulu box — this year’s model is your best bet.
WIRED Leaner, (slightly) meaner and quieter. Inches closer to the all-in-one entertainment box we’ve been waiting for. Cosmetic touches like touch-sensitive power and eject buttons class up the joint. Thrusts overpriced accessories ($80 for a Wi-Fi dongle?!) into obsolescence. Want to splurge on the Kinect in November? There’s an (integrated) port for that.
TIRED In many ways the same console we’ve been playing since Senior Year. Inter-console data transfers still require a wonky proprietary cable.

Realistic Rock Band Guitar Lends Cred to Your Shred

Rhythm games get a lot of guff from naysayers. If you’re a fan, you’ve surely heard the catty complaints: “That’s just a toy. It’s not a real guitar.”
And it’s true. The typical Rock Band or Guitar Hero controller is fun, but it’s a bit of a joke compared to the real thing. It may look guitarlike, but the primary-color buttons up top and the plastic flipper at the bottom don’t exactly impress the ladies. You can be the best guitar “hero” in the world and you’re really still just a loser with a plastic ax.
Well, the time is here to silence the naysayers — if you can handle it. For Rock Band 3, Mad Catz is seriously upping the ante with a whole new approach to guitar gaming. Put simply, the Fender Mustang PRO-Guitar Controller is not really a game controller at all, but a full-on guitar simulator. Seventeen frets split up a total of 102 buttons which correspond to a traditional six-string guitar fingerboard. Below that, you are now tasked with actually strumming the proper string — a real wire string — instead of moving a little plastic nubbin up and down. You can play with a pick or with your thumb and fingers. Callous lotion is not included.
The PRO-Guitar completely changes the Rock Band experience from top to bottom. No longer are you simply relying on muscle memory and blind luck to power through an Expert-level song, now you’re actually learning how to play it for real.
Is this difficult? Yes, it is difficult. If you’ve never picked up a guitar before, the learning curve is extremely steep. This is night and day vs. the standard rhythm game ax, and you’ll need to slave through the Rock Band 3 pro lessons — learning chords, arpeggios, muting strings and more — to have any hope of success. But as with a real guitar, practice and you’ll get there. I (a guitar novice) was at last breezing through Medium songs on day three, though completing tunes on Hard was still out of reach when my deadline arrived and the controller had to be returned to Mad Catz. The controller can also be used to play authentic bass guitar tracks, which are easier, and standard five-lane Rock Band guitar parts, which are surprisingly not.
What’s lacking? Despite the new approach, the Mustang still looks like a toy. It’s the same size as a standard guitar controller and is completely made of plastic. If you do want to eventually switch to a real guitar, you’re going to have to get used to everything being farther apart.
And sadly, this controller’s authenticity will do nothing to head off that other standby quip of the naysayers: “Why don’t you just play a real guitar?” Well, really, why don’t you?
WIRED You’re not playing a game any more, you’re learning how to play guitar. Totally revolutionizes Rock Band gameplay (and makes you the weakest member of the band).
TIRED No whammy bar — but, trust us, your hands will be full. Lacks weight. Big investment.

Nintendo 3DS Review: It’s Totally in Your Face

What’s so appealing about 3-D, anyway?
A while back, I saw two landmark 3-D movies in the same six-month time span: Avatar and the revival of Captain EO at Disneyland. The latter, a 1986 Michael Jackson flick, used 3-D in the sort of ham-handed ridiculous way it had always been used: Asteroids flew into the seats. Evil monsters poked their claws and spears into your face. Cue screams and laughter from audience.
For a movie so closely identified with the current 3-D boom, James Cameron’s Avatar never tried any of these tricks. I quickly forgot I was watching a “3-D movie.” The depth, the added sensation of things being further away, had the subtle effect of making everything seem real, touchable. The 3-D technology was the medium, not the message.
The Nintendo 3DS is at its best when it does Avatar, not Captain EO. Games that make players go gaga over the innovative glasses-free 3-D display are all well and good. But it’s the way the small screen’s 3-D effects make every 3DS game look like a little animated diorama in a shoebox that impresses me the most. Something about that third dimension brings games to life.

The $250 3DS, already available in Japan and coming stateside March 27, is a gadget with the weight of the world on its bezels. Nintendo has enjoyed uninterrupted dominance in the handheld gaming space since it practically created that space with Game Boy in 1989. This is now under assault from Apple’s suite of touchable phones and tablets, which play an increasingly enjoyable library of games for significantly lower prices.
Once again, Nintendo’s proposal is typical Nintendo — staunchly conservative and wildly innovative in equal measure. On the one hand, it emphasizes $40 retail games over cheap downloads, and the company says it won’t try to attract indie “garage game” developers. On the other hand, it has positively leapfrogged the competition by utilizing a glasses-free 3-D screen, in the same way that the original Nintendo DS led the way with its touch interface.
As other writers have already elaborated upon, the 3-D screen is made significantly better by the “volume control” slider to its right. You can crank the 3-D up all the way if you want to enjoy the full depth-of-field effects, but to view these you’ll need to hold the 3DS rather close to your face, pointed square at your eyeballs.
This is not nearly as taxing as it sounds — I’ve played it at length with the machine in just that position and never felt tired. But if you want, you can crank down the 3-D, sacrificing the full force of its power for a more relaxed viewing angle.

Screen aside, the 3DS looks a lot like the original DS. There’s a D-pad, four face buttons, L and R shoulder buttons and Select and Start buttons. Oh, and there’s the lower screen, which isn’t 3-D but still has a touch interface.
The big additions are a comfortable analog “slide pad” joystick and a 3-D camera, which faces outward, so you can take stereoscopic pictures of the world around you. Every Nintendo 3DS comes with a 2-GB SD card, and photos are saved directly onto this in two formats — JPG and MPO.
When you look at the images on the 3DS’ tiny screen, they may not seem so bad. When you actually open them on a PC, they look pretty much awful. But because it uses the standard MPO file format, you can then open those 3-D images in other viewers or use them on other devices. (Nintendo says it will eventually update 3DS’ firmware to take 3-D video.)
The 3DS is packed full of preloaded games and applications, some of which are more interesting than others. (I wager none will prove as compelling as Wii Sports.) Several “augmented reality” games use the 3-D camera to overlay gameplay onto a real-time image of the real world around you.
Of these, the most fun is Face Raiders, in which a photo of your face is transformed into a series of grotesque laughing enemies that fly all over the room and must be shot down. It’s not the game’s very simple point-and-shoot mechanic that makes it fun, it’s the hilarious comic expressions that it morphs your face into. Nintendo is still the master of these little touches.
Other features use the system’s wireless connection. You can set three different connections to various Wi-Fi hot spots, and when the 3DS gets into range of any of them it will automatically connect and search for new content on Nintendo’s servers. The StreetPass mode constantly searches for other people’s 3DS consoles and automatically exchanges data with them if you get within range. You can swap your Mii characters, which you can create on the system or import from your Wii, for example.
You can also drop the 3DS into sleep mode by just closing the lid, and it will continue to search for other DS systems and hot spots while running on a minimal battery charge. I was able to leave the 3DS sleeping and carry it around for two days without having to recharge it. And with so many reasons to always have it on me as I go about my day, I fully plan on doing so.
That said, when you actually have the 3DS open and are playing a game, the battery will drain very quickly. If you’ve got the wireless turned on and the screen brightness going at full blast, you’ll be staring down the Blinking Red Light of Impending Death within about three hours.
Turn the Wi-Fi off and crank down the brightness and you might squeeze another 90 minutes out of it, if you’re lucky. To that end, Nintendo has included a convenient charging cradle with each 3DS, and you’d probably better get used to using it regularly.
Eighteen months from now, Nintendo will release the inevitable 3DS Lite and take us for another $250. Until that day arrives, I’m pretty comfortable saying that the Nintendo 3DS is the best gaming platform the company has ever created: The user experience is quite polished in a variety of ways, and its forward-thinking core feature really does make gaming better. Nintendo will sell a lot of them, and glasses-free 3-D will be a big deal in the next generation of gadgets, just like an avalanche of touch screens followed the first DS.
But all that may not be enough to keep smartphones and tablets from siphoning away more and more of the gamers who have long kept Nintendo in charge of the portable-gaming world.
WIRED 3-D visuals are true game-changer. Variety of fun, preloaded apps. Lots of reasons to carry it around in sleep mode.
TIRED Camera images are low-quality. Chews through battery in the blink of an eye. Games start at $40.