The Nintendo DSi XL is set to hit Europe on 5th March and Cubed3 has been given the chance to take a look at the Japanese version (DSi LL) to see how it compares to the rest of the DS family and see if it really is an essential purchase.

Back on 11th March, 2005 in Europe, Nintendo originally unleashed what was meant to be its ‘Third Pillar’ system, the touch-screen enabled DS, which was named as such due to its dual-screen setup (although some deemed it the ‘Developer System’ due to its lower development costs and the simplicity to create games on it). After seeing off the Game Boy Advance and GameCube to become the company’s main platform prior to the release of the Wii, Nintendo capitalised on the new audience that had been drawn to the system thanks to games like nintendogs and Animal Crossing by launching the sleeker DS Lite on 23rd June, 2006, not long after the Western debut of Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training. Once the preliminary popularity explosion of the platform had begun to settle down somewhat, Nintendo decided another revision was required. As a result, it axed the Game Boy Advance slot, added in a camera and audio playback, as well as introduced an internal web browser and the DSiWare download service for new games for the DSi launch on 3rd April, 2009. A mere eleven months down the line, a larger version, the DSi XL, is due to hit European retail on 5th March, 2010. Cubed3 takes a closer look at what can be expected…

jesusraz via cubed3.com »