Best in Black
Well, it took eight days to get here, but my little bundle of joy arrived yesterday afternoon and I couldn’t help but click my heels and gayfully parade around the yard, package in hand, singing my praises to the United States Postal Service. And what had ol’ Stealth in such a fine mood? Why his freshly imported black DS Lite, of course.
There is something about a shiny black veneer that I find cosmetically irrestible. As such, my entire line of consumer perephrials have fallen into a sort of glossy monotony: black iPod w/video, black Acura, black Samsung LCD TV, black ViewSonic LCD, black Thermaltake tower, black Logitech speakers and mice, black GameCube and PS2… and that’s only a taste.
Needless to say, my wallet (the irony is sublime) and cell phone are the most standout items to have escaped my horrible fetish for colorless homogenity. Basically, my rule of thumb is two-fold:
- It cannot be white (Oh Xbox 360, how you taunt me)
- If there is an option for black, it must be taken
Surely this must border along some line of OCD behavior, but when one actually holds a black Lite in their hands, they will undoubtedly forego any conclusions that such a sickness exists. The device is truly that beautiful.
But is beauty not only skin deep? We are expected to believe this as fact, yet I have seen proof of the contrary. Simply insert a DS cartidge into your black DS Lite and flick the power slider. That burst of optic splendor shining in your face right now? That is beauty.
It actually has caused me to ponder why our reliable, yet rather unremarkable, friend the DS XL was never designed with such a focus on visual appeal in the first place. Even the revolution–I mean Wii–has had a solid, appealing design since it was first revealed as a prototype box. So why, in the face of the looming PSP Launch, did the DS have to begin as the ugly duckling? Was cost that much of an issue? Or maybe it was the GBA cartridge slot protrusion? No, my friends, the answer is far simpler: it was greed.
Yes, Nintendo, like we consumers, has a knack for syphoning as much from our pockets as possible when it comes to handhelds. Why didn’t the GBA have a backlight? Because then you couldn’t have made the SP. And why didn’t the SP have a headphone port? Because then we didn’t need to buy that little dongle!
The case is no different with the DS. Nintendo released Base Unit A to the public, and then provided us with a myriad of color schemes for said Unit. Then, when a sufficient amount of time had passed (read: enough good games were out), they went and pulled the curtain back on Kickass Unit B. And we, the ever-loyal gaming sheep, quickly panicked and lined up for what was clearly the better product, even though it had Flaws 1-3 built in to spite us. (slot, stylus, and charger pin, if you were wondering).
But who the hell are we to complain? I mean, have you touched a DS Lite? Do you realize what you’re missing by not owning one? You want to be cool, don’t you? I know I did. And now I can safely say that yes, Nintendo, you have raped my wallet once again, and it was more than fantastic.
Call me?
