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Japanese games giant Nintendo is launching a new-look version of its popular DS handheld games console.

	Nintendo unveils the new portable video game console, the DSi, equipped with a 3.25-inch LCD display and 300,000-pixel digital camera

The console, called the Nintendo DSi, can be used to take photos, download games and play music.

The DSi will go on sale in Japan on Nov 1, and will be available to European gamers in spring 2009.

"We want to change the DS from something that's in every household to something that's for every person," said Nintendo's president, Satoru Iwata.

He said that the new console could be the very first toy camera for a child, as well as tool for social communication and networking.

The DSi has two 0.3-megapixel cameras, and a slightly larger screen than its predecessor, along with a thinner form factor.

It will feature a memory card slot, so that gamers can play music saved on a SD card through the device. However, Nintendo has removed the GameBoy Advance cartridge slot on the DSi that made previous versions of the DS backwards-compatible with GameBoy games.

Mr Iwata said that gamers would be able to change the speed at which sound or music is played, meaning, for example, that they could slow down a foreign language lesson, or speed up and distort songs.

Nintendo said it had sold more than 77.5 million DS consoles worldwide since the device first went on sale in 2004.

In 2006, Nintendo revamped the DS, introducing a touchscreen version, the DS Lite. The Japanese games company has been credited with bringing a new audience to the world of gaming.

Women and young girls love the puzzle and brain-training games available on the DS, as well as its ease of use, while the Nintendo Wii, which uses wireless motion-sensitive controllers, has proved a big hit with families.

Although the DS continues to sell strongly in the UK, sales have been declining in Japan, with Sony's handheld games console, the PSP, outpacing sales of the DS in Japan for the last five months. The DSi will cost YEN18,900 (

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