Nintendo has always been the top dog out of the big three for prices - there's no real competition there. With the least expensive next generation system on the market and the most popular handheld gaming device in the world, they apparently decided it would be a little more awesome if they lowered the suggestive retail pricing of both their DSi and DSi XL. And they were right.

The Nintendo DSi will now be dropping to a suggest price of $149.99, whereupon the Dsi XL will be dropping to $169.99, both $20 decreases! With these spontaneous price drops -- likely preparing for the revolutionary Nintendo 3DS and its due arrival on the marketplace -- many are wondering how Sony will respond with pricing for the PSP. However, until Sony announces anything, we're just going to be content with the fact that one of the best tools a gamer can have just got a little less expensive. It's a much appreciated gesture, and is certainly better than what others are doing.

Nintendo's own Cammie Dunaway, the executive vice president of sales of marketing within Nintendo of America (longest job title award goes to her) had some words to chime in about the price drop:

"We know shoppers want to get the maximum value out of every dollar they spend. Our new Nintendo DSi prices make it easier than ever for consumers to access the tremendous variety of games, applications and social tools on the Nintendo DSi and Nintendo DSi XL systems."

For those wondering, Nintendo have confirmed that the regular Nintendo DS Lite will be remaining at its suggested retail price of $129.99, which just means that the pricing difference between models is simply smaller. I don't know about you, but I think throwing in an extra 20 bucks is well worth upgrading from a DS to a DSi, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks that.

With a huge assortment of games ranging from things like Dragon Quest to Pokemon to Cooking Mama to Catz and back again, I don't think anyone can argue that it's probably the most diverse system on the market. With sales of 42.3 million DS units, I think the question these days should be who among us hasn't bought a DS already -- after all, we can't all be like Game Rant's Riley Little and have five of the things lying around.

What do you think, Ranters? Do you think the DSi price change is giving you good value to the dollar? Do you think they'll drop the price again once the 3DS is released? Share your thoughts!

Source: Yahoo Finance