Nintendo's Relationship With Multimedia

Of the four most successful console developers (past and present), Sega, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, the later has been the most reluctant to move away their consoles away from a simple gaming machine. In recent years however Nintendo have become known for innovative ways to play games and their latest innovation is the black DSi which includes digital cameras to bring about more ways of interacting with games.
nSega launched their last console, the Dreamcast, in 1999. It was the first console which provided Internet access for web browsing and online gaming.
nThe Play station 2 was released a year later but did not come a with built-in modem. It took until 2003 for the modem to become available in Europe.
nIn 2001 Nintendo released their GameCube but it never included Internet capability as Nintendo intended to keep it purely as a games machine.
nWith the following generation, it was clear that any system without Internet capabilities would be left behind. This included handheld consoles. Sony's PSP long with Nintendo's DS both included the extremely fast growing Wi-Fi technology. The PSP contains a flash memory reader which allows films, music and photos to be viewed and listened to through the console as with the PS3 and Xbox.
nAgain Nintendo have been a little more reluctant to bring about non-gaming hardware for DS but with the new black DSi they are about to move into that territory. The Black DSi includes an SD card reader which can store music and videos. The quality of sound output in the DSi has also been increased to accommodate the systems music play capabilities.
nUnfortunately Nintendo aren't going to let you listen to your MP3 collection on your black DSi. They are sticking to ACC music files only. The reason is unknown although it could be related to a music downloading service.