The Nintendo DSi was launched in the UK on 3rd April – how is it doing? Reaction to the Japanese launch in November 2008 was spectacular, with 172,000 sales in the first week, but let’s be modern here and check the progress of the DSi by that barometer of opinion, Twitter. “Me and @simonriding just bought a Nintendo DSi and GTA Chinatown Wars. Fun times ” says rBex – sounding good so far… “Finally found an awesome case for my new DSi!!!!” is MagnificentMel’s contribution, still, she sounds pretty happy. I’d like to know what makes that case awesome but I guess there are only so many characters in a tweet… Personally I want a DSi not to play games on, but to have a laugh stretching pictures of peoples’ faces, creating cartoons in the Moving Notepad application then adding sound with the built-in microphone – basically being a bit creative and a bit silly in equal measure. One of the new features is an audio player, compatible with AAC (iTunes style) files but not MP3, with various filters and time-stretch effects to play with. Similarly the cameras at 0.3 megapixel VGA may not be amazing quality but the scope for editing and generally having fun is huge. There are around eleven different special effects, from face recognition to morphing together of images, mirror effects and comparison of facial qualities to calculate how much you look like your friend. Having said that, some of the games they have in Japan do sound pretty good, so who knows? The new games are bought online form the DSi Shop using DSi Points (formerly called Wii Points). You can buy DSi consoles in all the major retailers.

For a while now the price of the Xbox 360 has been dropping across the range of 3 main models.  If your looking for a cheap xbox 360 console, there has never been a better time to buy one, although that’s not to say the price may not drop in the future.

Prices have dropped on average 20% – 30% over the past year and With prices on the entry Arcade version around the £120 mark it really is the best value for money out of the next generation consoles. You can even get the top of the range Xbox 360 Elite for less than £200 if your prepared to wait for the odd bargain deal that crops up from time to time.

If you want the best value for money you may want to look for a bundle offer as there are always plenty to choose from when looking at the main online and offline retailers, many of these will include additional accessories such as controllers and often at least one if not more games to get you started on your next generation console.

With some great games which are exclusive to the Xbox 360 such as Halo, Mass Effect, Gears Of War and the Project Gotham Racing series there is plenty of reasons to choose the 360 over it’s competition, not to mention it has exclusive rights over the additional download content for Grand Theft Auto 4 one of the biggest selling games of 2008.

What also makes the Xbox 360 appealing is that as it has been around for a few years now the price of some of the early releases are available brand new for less than £10 meaning for less than £100 you can easily build up a nice collection of decent quality games.