Datel Reveals 4 GB Media Player for Nintendo DS

News from Lik Sang

After fitting Magicstor's 4 gigabytes Microdrive into the PSP, through their clever Memory Stick adapter, Datel is moving on multiplying products that make use of the same storage solution for all consoles. Hot on the heels of the successful and popular 4GB Hard Drive for the PSP, Datel is trying indeed to expand their range to the Xbox 360, as we were reporting a couple of weeks ago, and now, more excitingly, to the Nintendo DS too!

Immediately posing as serious competition for the NDS/GBA Movie Player and for Nintendo's Play-Yan, Datel's 4GB Max Media Player will feature playback features for various types of files, video or audio. You will be able to watch your movies, browse through your pictures and listen to your songs on the Nintendo DS thanks to this new converter, same as you can do using the two products mentioned above for a very long time already. Where the new device from Datel differs from the previously released add-ons is in the memory solution it relies on (built-in hard drive instead of exchangeable compact flash or SD cards, that respectively Movie Player and Play-Yan were making use of), and in the fact that the main software slots in through the actual Nintendo DS cart port rather than via the GBA connector. We hope that this will allow new display options and more features that were not possible with its two predecessors, but in order to check that out, we will need an evaluation sample of the 4GB Max Media Player to be in our mits. We are trying to score one from our mates at Datel while you are reading this, stay tuned for our hands-on report as soon as the first prototype reaches our desk.

Preorders are written down for 179 US$, and release date is poised to be March 2006. This is our final price for the product, after cross-checking earlier information with Datel directly.