Following the release of Nintendo DS and then Nintendo DS Lite, the third member of this platform was the Nintendo DSi. Developed with a wider audience in mind, this version boasts enhancements to some regular features and also has many entirely new functions.

After several surveys and polls, Nintendo discovered the public ideally wanted a thinner machine with a larger screen so they produced the DSi. It is 12% thinner than it's predecessor so, sadly as a consequence had to lose the slot for Advanced Gameboy games but the screen now measures 3.25 inches - a full quarter of an inch larger than the DS Lite.

The first new feature compared with the DS Lite is the nifty camera. The resolution isn't that amazing at only 0.3 megapixels but the camera software has eleven types of camera lenses. Basically, this means you can take photos with various special effects such as turning them black and white, putting frames around them, drawing glasses and moustaches on people's faces or even merging two faces into one using the special face-recognition capability.

Audio play is another new ability. This has the added bonus of being able to alter the pitch and speed of any given sound. It goes without saying that this together with the addition of a microphone has the potential for hours of fun in a room full of family and friends yet it also has a more practical use. Having to trawl through a podcast for an exact place is now a thing of the past as DSi will let you find it easily with the speedy fast forwarding function.

The DSi can now access the web as well. With its own browser, aptly called the DSi browser, surfing the net is absolutely simple. It also makes it easy to click on the DSi shop where anything related to the DS platform is readily available.

Amazing as all this sounds, the DSi however, already has a little brother. The next generation of DS has been born in the form of the 3DS.This has all the functions and capabilities of DSi with one major enhancement: 3D! Nintendo has brought hand held gaming into the twenty first century by enabling gamers to play to their heart's content in 3D without the need of glasses. It can even take pictures and shoot video in 3D. They have kindly added an analogue joystick to the controls for greater control and, in order to cope with 3D games it also has a motion sensor and gyroscope (so, you never know, it might be able to double up as a Wii remote too).

Nintendo always like to keep their fingers on the pulse when it concerns new trends and the Nintendo DSi is proof of this as a wider and wider range of people are starting to have fun with it.