DSi XL feeling midnight blue July 11

It took nearly six months before Nintendo rolled out the first new color schemes for the DSi, following its launch in April 2009. However, for that system's supersized successor, the DSi XL, Nintendo has accelerated that pace. Today, the Japanese game company announced that it will add a midnight blue system color to the currently available burgundy and bronze options in North America.

The midnight blue DSi XL will arrive in North American stores on July 11, carrying the system's standard $189.99 price tag. The DSi XL sports 4.2-inch dual screens, up from the DSi's 3.25-inch screens. Nintendo claims that the XL's battery life clocks in at four to five hours on maximum brightness and 13 to 17 hours on the lowest brightness, on par with the DS Lite.

The supersized handheld also comes preinstalled with several games and applications, including Photo Clock, Brain Age Express: Arts & Letters, Brain Age Express: Math, Flipnote STudio, and the DSi Browser. Notably, DSiWare games are not transferable to another handheld, meaning that DSi owners would have to repurchase games if they upgraded to the DSi XL.

As part of its year-end earnings report in May, Nintendo said that sales of the DSi XL (known as DSi LL in Japan) had reached 2.08 million units worldwide. As the system has only been available, at the earliest, in November, that figure represents just a fraction of total lifetime Nintendo DS sales, which stood at 128.9 million units through March 2010.