1000 DS HotSpots By End of Year

Nintendo has announced that they will impliment up to 1000 DS wireless hotspots by the end of the year in Japan. No word yet on international wireless initiatives, though the article states there are many countries interested in the project. Iwata also repeats an earlier belief that online gaming has yet to really take off. From the article: "Iwata said online gaming had yet to take off and spread to a wide audience of users because of various drawbacks, including a laborious process to get connected to a network and consumers' unwillingness to pay a monthly fee for access."

Comments

Gotta still have faith in Nintendo

[defkkon]

Nintendo was heavily criticized for not jumping into the realm of online gaming. I criticized them as well. I was sitting there playing my PS2 online and my Xbox Live thinking "Geez, I wish Nintendo would do this!" Nintendo's defense was that it "wasn't the right time." I called bullshit, along with many many others.

Now I'm ashamed that I had lost faith in them. Nintendo truly doesn't go with the majority. They really were waiting for the "right time" to do something unique with online (and specifically, wireless) technology.

Between the DS hotspots and the proposed online service for the Revolution, it just goes to show you that Nintendo will take whatever the competition is doing and find a unique way of adapting it.