During his speech yesterday in Japan, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata spoke about several concepts of the wireless functionality of the DS.
He began by restating the DS's capability of playing multiplayer games with only a single game card:
"The DS's wireless connection isn't just a substitute for the link cable that was used on the Game Boy. The DS has wireless download capability, which allows it to receive a program and to execute it. With it, people can play games together using only one cartridge."
We've known about this feature for some time now, but Iwata also mentioned that the same technology could be utilized in other creative ways:
"Although this won't be available at launch, we're thinking of using the wireless download function to change the way in which people try out upcoming games at retail outlets.... We're thinking of a system where people can download a demo program, with a time or a usage limit, to their own DS. We hope that this system will allow new potential hits to be recognized by everyone, and that it will help to buck the trend where only sequels are hitting the sales charts."
Following up on Yamauchi's recent comments that Nintendo should begin an animation studio, Iwata confirmed that the company is considering the idea, but that it is too early to give any more details on the subject. Instead, he segued into introducing the concept of tying downloadable DS content into movie theaters (I suspect you'd need to keep the volume down):
"On a related subject, we're planning [to] try integrating the DS with movie theaters. By using the system's wireless functionality, users that bring their DS and GBA Pokémon cartridge to designated theaters will be able to download game data that will be distributed during certain scenes of the next Pokémon movie. In one scene where the main characters meet a new Pokémon, that character's data will be sent to their cartridges. This will be the first time such a distribution scheme has been used anywhere in the world."
And finally, the example he uses for this idea is none other than a GBA game. We can only conclude that this means wireless GBA games are also compatible with the Nintendo DS's wireless technology, which may have something to do with why the GBA wireless adapter only works with games programmed for it.
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Originally posted by: Ian Sane
No online play mentioned. Gee no surprise there.
That movie idea is weird. I don't want a bunch of idiots playing their DS during a movie. Now realistically I'm not going to see Pokemon in the theatre so it probably won't affect me directly. Still I don't like anything that teaches kids that making noise during a movie is acceptable. The bad habits they pick up during Pokemon may carry over to Harry Potter or some other "kids movie" I do want to see. I have enough problems with stupid brats while watching those films as it is.
The downloadable demo idea is pretty cool... in theory. The only problem is I like to KEEP demos. My interest in videogames goes beyond just living for the moment. I like collecting stuff too. If the demo is lost when I turn off my system or times out at some point it's gone forever. So if Nintendo changed something that was originally in the demo or cancelled a game that had a demo for it we can't keep that. It's gone forever. Realistically though I don't expect them to give us blank cartridges or anything to save stuff to since that would be a real piracy issue. It's just kind of a bummer.
Actually piracy might be a problem period because of the wireless stuff. If someone finds a way to save the DS memory you could potentially steal a complete game if you downloaded it from another player for multiplayer. With wireless transmissions you could find a way to just grab this stuff out of the air. That would solve my inability to keep demos but boy would that be misused. I could see an official third party product being released to save game states that could be hacked for piracy.
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Originally posted by: Ian Sane
The downloadable demo idea is pretty cool... in theory. The only problem is I like to KEEP demos. My interest in videogames goes beyond just living for the moment. I like collecting stuff too. If the demo is lost when I turn off my system or times out at some point it's gone forever.
QuoteWhile, i agree with you on the demos are cool to keep, i thought Iwata meant this as instead of demo kiosks at stores, not take home demo discs. Speaking of take home demos, when the last time you got to keep a GBA demo anyway?
Originally posted by: Ian Sane
The downloadable demo idea is pretty cool... in theory. The only problem is I like to KEEP demos. My interest in videogames goes beyond just living for the moment. I like collecting stuff too. If the demo is lost when I turn off my system or times out at some point it's gone forever. So if Nintendo changed something that was originally in the demo or cancelled a game that had a demo for it we can't keep that. It's gone forever. Realistically though I don't expect them to give us blank cartridges or anything to save stuff to since that would be a real piracy issue. It's just kind of a bummer.