Will all Nintendo DS games really work with the new DSi console?

Posted by Al Warmington on Thu 30 Oct 2008

Trouble brewing or storm in a teacup?

With the Nintendo DSi about to launch in Japan, excitement about the updated hardware is reaching fever pitch. Nintendo's upgrades to the phenomenal DS Lite may be fairly minor in the grand scheme of things, but there's a growing concern that Ninty may have changed too much, with one developer pointing out potential compatibility.

The anonymous source, who no doubt doesn't want to get a severe bollocking from Nintendo about their loose lips, told PocketGamer that its studio has been having trouble getting an upcoming title to work on the new hardware.

The game is struggling to get through Nintendo's approval process because of freezing issues cropping up on the DSi version.

Having a bug or two is itself not much of a surprise, and it's an obstacle every developer has to tackle when making a game. But if, as is implied, the game does work fine on the Nintendo DS and DS Lite, but not on the DSi, then there's a clear indication that the new hardware may not be as fully compatible as Nintendo would like.

It could be single isolated incident, and Nintendo has been very clear in its assertion that the DSi is fully compatible with older DS games (barring those that use the GBA port, sorry Guitar Hero: On Tour). However, the vast majority of those games were made when the DSi was not even a consideration. If one game is having problems with differences in the hardware, then it stands to reason more could suffer the same.

This could be just fear-mongering, and knowing nothing about the developer or what game it is working on doesn't help either. Whatever happens, we're pretty sure that once Japanese players have had the chance to try out their DS collections on the new handheld, we'll know for certain.

Nintendo (via PocketGamer)