Good Money, Bad Money

It's no secret that Apple's iPad product announcement (and now a specific availability date) has been met with as much yawning as there has been excitement. Personally, the commercials look enticing, and anyone who owns an iPhone or iPod is probably drooling at having such a large surface to play with. I will avoid rehashing my questions regarding the lack of certain, "must have" features or the price of the device since I've already written about these two things in a previous entry.

Given the bevy of people calling this the iFail, iDontKnow, etc. it is surprising to see Nintendo announcing a new product that, like the iPad is in relation to the iPod, is essentially a new device with the same capabilities as before. (In reality, it's not really that surprising that these products are generating buzz since we've seen Blackberry release a huge number of products that essentially do the same thing: send email and make phone calls. In fact, I could still be using the 8830 that I was given 4 years ago and wouldn't notice the difference between that and my 9630 that I have now.)

Why did they do it? Granted the product has probably been under development for quite some time, and you can't simply throw away the R&D that you've done simply because another company's concept isn't necessarily a home-run before it steps into the batter's box. (And Apple has that sort of reputation, no?) Still, how much R&D do you need to produce a DSi with screens that are slightly larger; different pre-installed software; and no other differences?

"Hello Nintendo!" I want to scream. "This is what we call Market Research."