Tuesday 25-Jan-2005 4:09 PM Nintendo lining up online service for DS and possibly paving the way for Xbox Live-style service for Revolution Rumours have been doing the rounds since the Nintendo DS became available last year that the handheld would be able to play games online via its wi-fi connection. While tech-heads have been working their digital socks off to crack the problem, Nintendo has remained silent on the possibility of online DS gaming.
Not any more. "The DS does have online capabilities that Nintendo is exploring," a spokesperson for Nintendo confirmed to us today, "but plans for these capabilities have not been announced yet."
With our juices flowing from this tasty - and official - morsel, we pressed our unofficial sources close to the Japanese games giant for more information. We were informed that an online service for DS is definitely on the way, and that you'll be able to download/upload information as well as play games online. In addition, apparently at least two US and Japanese third-party developers have been trialling the DS online, and have even managed to get more than 16 DSs linked wirelessly at one time.
The likelihood is - and this is only speculation at present - that DS online would work is a similar fashion to the rumoured plans for PSP's wi-fi networking we reported yesterday (catch up here). You'd need to be in range with a wireless access point to the internet (a PC, a public wireless hotspot like a café or airport, or even a Nintendo Revolution...?), which would then upload and download information from your DS and send it across the network. In this way you could play against DS owners around the world.
While no final plans have been detailed by Nintendo for DS online, it seems we're extremely close to an announcement - possibly at Nintendo's unveiling of the European pricepoint and release date for the handheld on Thursday, January 27 in Paris. We'll be there.
These revelations follow more speculation about Nintendo's online plans for DS aroused by a reader's letter to IGN's DS subsite. Responding to a query about the DS's wi-fi capabilities Craig Harris, the editor-in-chief of the site, made the following statement:
"There's been rumblings at Nintendo that indicate that the company will finally unwrap its DS online plans very, very soon. If we've been hearing things correctly, Nintendo will finally and very, very soon, reveal its own "Xbox Live"-like service for developers to adopt. "
From the speculation we've heard today, it seems that Mr. Harris may well be right on the money. But what about games to exploit this new online capability in DS? Harris offers, "And the first game out of Nintendo to use this service will be one of those massively killer Nintendo brands that people have been wanting to play online for years..."
Mario Kart DS? A new Pokemon game? Consider speculation season open.
So that's the exciting DS news, but where does this leave Nintendo's next-gen Revolution? Rumours stemming from an alleged inside source at Nintendo we reported on yesterday mentioned that Nintendo were working on an online gaming strategy that would debut on DS and carry over to Revolution. Now it looks like that claim is far more reliable since it would make perfect sense for Nintendo to debut an online gaming network on DS, and then refine it for the arrival of their next-gen home console.
Good news, or what? The reality of the situation is that Nintendo needs an online gaming strategy for both DS and Revolution. While the company has argued in the past that online gaming is not an immediate concern, the success of Xbox Live and PS2's online component, coupled with the imminent threat of a PSP that looks to be preparing an online gaming onslaught, networking is going to be an essential element of gaming in the future.
Unfortunately it seems that we'll just have to wait for Nintendo to make the full announcement about the DS's online capabilities. We're optimistic, though - we know the Japanese giant has some surprises up its sleeve for the European DS announcement on Thursday, and details about the innovative handheld's online future would be the perfect way to hammer home its status ahead of a launch on this continent...
We'll be at the press conference on Thursday and we'll bring you all the latest first.
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