Nintendo’s Wave of Novelty Peripherals

“Concerned” by the DSi’s admittedly dreadful image quality, Thrustmaster have announced the glittery cerise Studio Kit to “make the most of your DSi’s digital camera feature”. Included in the $19.99 bundle are a range of hyperbolic kit, including but not limited to, a macro lens; to “observe the infinitely small” and a tele lens which, somehow, professes to quite literally “move things closer!”

While the package is clearly unable to elevate the woeful 640×480 images taken on Ant and Dec’s favourite handheld to the lofty heights of even a cheap Argos pay-as-you-go handset, it’s perhaps admirable that Thrustmaster are attempting to revitalise such entry-level imaging hardware for Nintendo’s key demographics.

Or in rhetoric, perhaps not?

While not the first add-on for the DSi’s camera, the very fact that more than a single manufacturer is exploring this particular peripheral avenue is more than a little worrying.

Nintendo’s DS Lite was a beautiful hardware revision. While hilarious for all of 15 minutes come Christmas morning, the unlikely decision to crowbar a remarkably sub-standard VGA imaging device into both sides of its crustacean, plastic shell for the DSi was gloriously unnecessary; an opinion unlikely swayed by even the console exclusive, room spinning nonsense of Alpha Unit’s augmented reality title Monster Finder.

The system’s updated firmware foregrounded in press-release and advertising a crude face warping application. The attention paid to this ugly rendition of an already archaic digital toy sent out a clear message: traditional ‘games’ don’t sell systems half as well as technical novelties. With the relatively innovative DSiware and pre-existing library of stellar titles glossed over, marketing had shifted from attempting to sell non-games like Brain Training and the awkward page-turning simulator 100 Classic Book Collection to something altogether more sinister: attempting to sell a non-console.

Permanently bathed in the smug glow of a nuclear family or relationship, the bright airy living rooms of Nintendo’s UK advertising makes for sickly viewing. Couples guffaw over a voice sample sped up and paw at each other’s arms in mock anger over a paticularly mishapen photo-edit. These people, while of course scripted, do not play games and yet in Sega’s hardware absence have reappropriated one of the only remaining game dedicated companies.

Yet in typical Nintendo style, the DSi’s slight re-invention and demographic fidget again ushered in waves of cash-ready adopters. The difference here was the undercurrent. Running parallel to a sea of burgeoning wallets were hordes of manufacturers ready to jump on a reasonably unique bandwagon set in motion by the Wii’s handle-less army of tennis rackets, golf clubs and swords three years earlier.

While the DSi and its camera adhesions are arguably less offensive than Wiimote sports accessories because of the handheld’s gentle approach to media convergence, we must still unite against enemies like Thrustmaster with their open invitations to camera-less, DSi owning, would-be David Baileys. The more we let slide, the more we’ll have crammed down our collective throats; mouth agape as Nyko or Mad Catz attempts to shoehorn chintzy telescopes, night vision or fully fledged hi-fis into a machine content to just play host to some really great puzzle games.

Amusing for few others than the virginal white, sticky fingered tykes and gloriously fictitious ‘with it’ grandparents featured in Nintendo’s seemingly infinite televisual campaign, the very idea of anyone seriously carting the Studio Kit itself around in its silver spangled tote bag seems unlikely.

Picture the scene and imagine Grandpa helping little Timmy frame “the big picture” with his Thrustmaster wide-angle lens, hands aflutter in fumbling, die-cast error as growing lad’s sausage fingers clash with arthritic claw in cross generational, third party produced error. Here is Nintendo’s Touch Generations in practice.

Whilst never destined for mass-market retail penetration, the fact that major retailers will afford these thimble lenses shelf space at all is a problem which is growing exponentially. In subtly marketing their consoles as veiled toys to draw in and appease a wider audience, Nintendo has inadvertently iniatiated a meteoric rise of licensed novelty peripherals into common parlance.