Last weekend saw the release of the Nintendo DSi. It boasted a number of upgrades: dual cameras, a slick Wii-like interface, DSiWare, compatibility with SD and SDHC cards, et cetera. Another great option (my sarcasm begins) is its ability to easily connect to the internet via any wireless router; a feature I couldn't quite figure out on the regular DS (predominantly due to laziness). This option comes with a pretty major gamble – you’ll either be able to instantly locate your access point and connect with no problems, or you’ll have to jump through more hoops than the cast of Cirque du Soleil. Unfortunately, I was part of the latter camp. This is my story. Hopefully it will help some of you out if you're having the same issues.

For some strange reason, the DSi has a small list of wireless routers it is simply incompatible with. Why there are incompatible routers is incomprehensible to me (my PSP connected to the same router with absolutely zero problems), but I was using this router. I’ll be linking to Nintendo’s support site a lot because, while getting connected was a huge pain, their website does have all the support you need. It’s just jumbled about in an incredibly inconvenient layout.

So my first issue was the incompatible router. No problem, I thought to myself, I have two other routers packed away from my college days (I used this one). Hooking one of those up will be no problem at all. My next problem: I have DSL – it goes through a phone line. The aforementioned incompatible router has a slot for the phone line; my other routers did not. Trust me, I tried to get the phone line to work in them. It was not happening. Thus, I had to connect the compatible wireless router into the incompatible router, giving me two wireless networks.

Now, when I searched for the new wireless network via the DSi’s search option, the new router popped up instantly. Thinking I had it figured out, I tried to connect. Oops; my DSi told me it could not connect to the wireless network – I should check my DNS settings, or something. I might get some of these warnings wrong because I got so damn many over the course of this nightmare, but it all meant the same: search Nintendo’s support site.

I went into my second wireless router's administrator panel (putting your default IP into the address bar on your internet browser of choice), where you set the WEP keys, IP addresses, and other security settings among other things. According to the Nintendo support site, I should check several things, but first of all make sure my wireless router has the most up-to-date firmware. I’m not a techie – I had no idea you had to update wireless router firmware. So I had to go to the Linksys website, download the latest firmware version for my specific router, and install it. Not a terribly difficult task in itself; but nothing changed with the DSi. Connection still failed.

I decided to follow these other important steps from the Nintendo support site; I'm quoting here:

• "Change the "Basic transmission" to 1-2 mbps, and the TX rate to 2mbps. This is typically done by logging in to the router's setup utility, click on the "Wireless Tab," and then the "Advanced Wireless Settings" sub-tab directly below it.

• After updating the firmware, you will need to manually set up the DS with a static IP and open up the UDP ports on the router for that IP. (Please consult your router's instruction manual for information on opening the UDP ports.)"

Does that sound like something children or adults without advanced technological knowledge will know how to do? The people who call up the GEEK SQUAD to have their TVs or Wireless Networks installed and set up? The demographics Nintendo has been focusing on in this generation of consoles and handhelds? The answer is no. Fortunately for me, I knew how to do this. I changed my transmission rate and opened up my UDP ports for the IP. Let’s try to connect.

I believe my DSi told me something like this after these steps: “The DSi cannot connect to the wireless network because duplicate IP addresses exist.” Yep; this was probably thanks to having two wireless networks. Fixing this problem confused me; I knew I had to fiddle with my PC and its settings corresponding to the wireless router, but I couldn’t remember how to do that. Please help, Nintendo support site!

After running through their help/troubleshooting pages, I eventually landed on this page. Going through their supplied list of tips and settings, I checked off the following ideas:

• Firmware update for the router – already taken care of.

• Transmission rate – already taken care of.

• Poor signal strength – I was sitting 3 feet from the router.

• Can’t Detect Router Signal (SSID) – This was taken care of by setting up the second wireless network.

• MAC Filtering – My settings were set to the correct standards for the DSi.

• Does your router use 802.11g? – Yes; almost all of them do. Even the router that was incompatible did, but whatever.

• Wireless Channel – I thought maybe the two signals were interfering with each other, so I changed the channel the compatible Linksys router was using. Still no connection.

• If the above options didn't help, you may need to use the "Manual Settings" and change your Nintendo DS to "Static IP" – This is what I had to do.

On my PC, I had to run the IPCONFIG/ALL function, which involved going to the start menu, run, and typing in “cmd” into the command window. Using the DSi’s manual setup option, I had to type in the SSID of my router, the WEP security key, the static IP given from the IPCONFIG/ALL results (adding “10” to the final three numbers – usually making it 110 instead of 100), my DNS server information (primary and secondary), and then the Subnet Mask.

I tried connecting to the network again. It finally worked! For those with technological knowledge, this probably doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it involved so much backdoor work and altering of sensitive options and numbers (I lost the internet connection altogether a few times fiddling with the wrong settings), there’s really no excuse for this nonsense. Kids who buy the DSi, or parents who buy them for their kids (or themselves!), will have NO IDEA how to do all this.

This encompasses probably the worst-case scenario for setting your DSi up for the internet and I experienced it firsthand. I hope this story/guide makes it easy enough for those having trouble to get their DSi online, but for goodness sake Nintendo, you’ll probably make a lot of children and non-tech-savvy adults rather peeved for such a convoluted and inconvenient internet connection function. Despite all this, I love my DSi and found it worth the upgrade; since getting online, it loads up smooth and quick.