I know the Nintendo DSi is only available in Japan right now and I Google for information about when it's going to make it's arrival to the US but there isn't any solid information that i found yet.

What are your thoughts? Do you think the DSi will be in the US by xmas 2009 or sooner?

Will Nintendo stop selling the current DS lite when they bring the DSi?

Reportedly Fils-Aime (head of Nintendo in the U.S.) wanted to delay it because DS sales are strong. Some say as early as April, most say around June-July come E3 time to steal the spotlight from Sony and MS.

Will they stop selling the DS -willingly- ? Nope. They want to sell both. And remember the DSi won't have a GBA slot, so even things like the Guitar Hero peripheral won't work with it. The DS will have its market, although it will be just a shadow of what it is now.

Speaking of Nintendo eventually phasing out GBA support entirely (after already axing GB and GBC), I'm still baffled why these systems have not shown up on VC yet.

Isn't the DSi supposed to have some sort of VC interface as well? Does it allow you to pull games from the VC Store or your Wii for on-the-go play?

You'll be able to download past portable games. No Wii is required.

But are your Wii and DSi accounts linked together so that you can re-download what you've already paid for and not have to pay again for the right to play on-the-go?

Doubt it. They don't let you move downloaded games off of an SD card, right? Otherwise, you could log into your account on someone else's DSI, download the game, and then log off and he'd have a copy of the game too.

sounds even funnier if you say it out loud.

Colossal failure.

I think you're a little confused. As of now, there haven't been any portable games released to the Wii vc, ie gameboy or gamegear games. And I think nintendo is planning to keep it that way.

Wii vc will be for stuff that was released on home consoles and the DS vc will be solely for portable games. The games will be entirely different for the Wii and the DS, so buying them twice won't even be an option.

I'm assuming that the DS vc will link up with your mynintendo account just like the Wii does.

I'm not confused. In fact I already mentioned that GB/GBC/GBA are not on the VC. What I'm asking is if there's anyway to cross-post them.

You seem to have answered that in the negative.

There is no technical reason why the Wii can't emulate GB/GBC/GBA and likewise no technical reason why the DSi can't emulate C64, NES, SMS, Genesis, SNES, and T16.

I imagine they'll keep putting it off for as long as they can while DS sales are high.

From a consumer perspective, it doesn't seem particularly compelling anyway. The iPhone appstore pretty much destroys what's on the DS store already and, in terms of features the DSi can't compete. For now, it's selling great in Japan though.

From IGN, a couple weeks ago:

Rumor: DSi U.S. Launch Date, Price Revealed

I completely forgot about this. I lost interest when it was rumored that it would be able to play AAC audio but not MP3. I don't see any reason to buy this if the North American releases won't be able to play MP3 - not to mention the higher price, shorter battery life, and the fact that it's no longer backwards compatible.