Iwata talks Nintendo Wi-Fi

By Games Industry.biz Published 20 September, 2005

Coming to Europe in November.

Speaking at the Tokyo Game Show, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has revealed more details of the company's plans to promote wireless gaming for the Nintendo DS.

"It is our goal that all consumers who purchase a Wi-Fi enabled game will try Wi-Fi connection at least once," he said.

Iwata confirmed that consumers will not be required to pay any monthly fees to play first party titles - the only costs incurred will be the price of games and the user's own Internet connection. He said that Nintendo has worked hard to design a system which is secure and protected from the kind of abuse that can come from anonymity.

A Nintendo-branded USB Wi-Fi access point will appear on the shelves along side the first Wi-Fi enabled game for use by gamers who don't have a wireless Internet connection already set up - which would suggest that third party wireless access points can also be used.

Online retailer Play is already taking pre-orders for the "Nintendo DS USB Access Point", due for release on November 11. The adaptor is priced at GBP 14.99, a saving on what Play claims is an RRP of GBP 19.99.

Nintendo has said that there will be two types of service to choose from - users can either find people to play against according to how they've performed in the offline game, or create a list of friends.

Neither service will support voice chat as, according to a Nintendo Europe product manager quoted in a recent product guide, "We need to be entirely confident that there can be no untoward activity."

Gamers will be able to play online for free at high street stores across the country, which will be equipped with Wi-Fi antennae. Nintendo is also said to be negotiating free Wi-Fi hotspot connections with leading telecomms companies, and looking to close the deal by the end of the year.

The supplement confirmed that Mario Kart DS will launch in Europe on November 11, with Tony Hawk's American SK8Land to follow soon after. Animal Crossing Wild World and Metroid Prime Hunters are due for release in 2006.

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