Nintendo launched the DSi XL with the purpose of attracting elderly consumers with bad vision, gamers who sought a portable reading device, and people who wanted to play with the handheld in social settings. But there’s a new market segment that also seems interested – gorillas.
So this little boy was just walking around the San Francisco zoo, doing what every boy who is dragged to the zoo tends to do – play video games – when he accidentally dropped his DSi XL into the gorilla habitat. And wouldn’t you know it, a professional photographer happened to be right there.
Still photos and video capture a large gorilla that found the DSi, picked it up and started trying to figure out how the darn thing worked. At one point a smaller gorilla came up to take a look, just like the jealous kids on the elementary school playground.
After reportedly being unable to figure out the confusing friend code system, the gorilla knocked it around and eventually lost interest.
The boy got his system back when a trainer lured the gorilla with an apple and was able to snatch the device out of the gorilla’s hands. It then grabbed a princess and jumped up a tower of ladders and construction beams before throwing down barrels of oil.
Although the DSi was pretty beaten up, the rigorous inspection didn’t stop it from working. It turned right back on and the boy was able to continue his game, which unfortunately was most likely not this one. So congratulations, DSi XL, you have officially passed the American Tourister test. It seems Nintendo hasn’t gone astray from its history of extreme durability.
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There’s more to an innocent game of tag than meets the eye. When gorillas play the playground favourite, it teaches them a valuable life lesson about unfairness, social boundaries and retaliation. That, at least, is the conclusion of the first study to observe the primates’ reactions to inequity outside a controlled laboratory setting.
Young gorillas often engage in play fights that resemble what children do in a game of tag: one youngster will run up to another and hit it, then run away. The other gorilla then gives chase and hits the first one back (see video, above).
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