Before G4's Dan Hsu spoke to Reggie Fils-Aime about the DSi, the closest estimate we had for a North American release date was "well into 2009." Reggie has narrowed the window a bit, saying that because of strong DS Lite sales (Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G hasn't happened here to distract people from the DS), the DSi launch is "going to be in our next fiscal -- so, certainly after April."
He then went on to downplay the immediate importance of DS Shop downloads in North America, in a way that we can't help but read as stating the obvious given that we won't be able to buy anything to play DSWare until "down the road:
"We believe that as we continue to drive sales for DS hardware in total, the biggest opportunity's going to be on packaged software. Down the road, with the DSi Shop and downloadable software, certainly will be a growing opportunity and something developers are excited about, but it really is much longer down the road."
