This Sunday Nintendo will give to the world the DSi, the latest in a continuing lineage of handheld gaming devices that stretches back twenty long years to the Game Boy. There is little doubt in most peoples’ minds that this console, like almost every other the company has released, will become the hottest item on store shelves, sell out across the world, and make Nintendo another gajillion dollars. That’s all well and good. But I will not be buying one. This wasn’t a decision I came to quickly; it’s something I thought long and hard about. Ultimately though, there are just too many reasons not to get one.

My phone works just as well. A few years ago, I decided to splurge and treated myself to a first gen, 8GB iPhone. When I bought it, I was psyched to have a device that would allow me to make phone calls while listening to music. Since then, Apple has launched the App Store, allowing users to download thousands of applications, including games. To date, I have about a dozen games running on my phone, none of which cost me more than $10 and three of them were actually free. It’s rare these days that I do an excessive amount of handheld gaming (riding the train and when in the bathroom probably constitute about 90% of that time), so for my needs, the iPhone is more than sufficient. Plus, it has a touch-screen, and a built-in camera, so I’m covered on that end too.

I am not excited by the design. The biggest change from the Lite to the DSi is the addition of the second touch screen. While many people hail this as a brilliant move, I am skeptical. There have been very few games that have combined touch-screen controls with the face buttons with any degree of success. Most of the best DS games are the ones that use either face buttons or the touch-screen as the sole control scheme. I can’t see how adding yet another variable to the control equation will make these muddled issues any better. Further, although at first glance the DSi really looks like a DS Lite with a peephole, upon closer examination, there are reasons to question some of the design choices. The DSi is 12% thinner than the Lite. As it is, I get nervous playing my Lite for fear of dropping it and cracking the delicate casing. Also, the cameras are woefully underpowered at .3 megapixels, and that is nearly as inexcusable as the fact that the Wii outputs at 480i.

What’s with that blue? When Nintendo first announced the DSi, I was intrigued by the idea. Then I saw the colors that North America would be getting, and my enthusiasm quickly waned. Although the matte black is a good looking machine, the blue version looks like the color was picked by a myopic Easter Bunny after staring into the Sun for fifteen minutes. It’s a color so bright and garish that part of me wonders if it drains the battery faster. Yeah, I know that there will be more colors released, and probably not before too long. But that blue has got to go.

DSiWare is just Virtual Console to Go. Nintendo has made a big to-do about the fact that you’ll be able to download games directly to your DSi via the DSiWare. Wow, what an original concept: Nintendo licensing their own library of games as ports for another system. Seriously, how many more times am I going to have to shell out $6 to remind myself that the 8 bit era is better in my memory than in real life? Sure, there are some timeless classics that demand constant replay, but I for one refuse to once again buy into the idea that it’s fun and cool to pay for the same games over and over again.

It’s the economy, stupid. Let’s be frank here for a second- times are tough. We read day in and day out about how tight money is getting, that we all need to be saving more, and that we all need to be more judicious in our spending. With games being so large a part of my discretionary budget (along with beer), I find myself forced to make hard choices about what I will or won’t buy. With the DSi, I’m just not sure that Nintendo has done enough to get me to part with my $170.

That’s why pencils have erasers... It’s really easy for me to sit here today and tell you that I’m not going to purchase the DSi. I have given the matter great thought, and I’ve come to what I feel is an informed decision. But I should remind you, as I remind myself, that I haven’t seen it yet. It’s entirely possible that on Monday, when everyone comes into the office with a new toy, I will be too enamored of it to be able to resist the urge to buy one. Hell, this is a guy who swore he’d never own a Sony product, and now has a PS3, PSP, a 32” Bravia, and a Sony speaker set up. So there’s always the chance that I change my mind. But for now, today, I will not be buying a DSi.

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