Iwata Touts DS Online Features
The DS will go online later this year, but publishers are going to decide whether you're going to be paying or not.
At the Game Developers Conference in March, company president Satoru Iwata said that Nintendo would be taking the DS online later this year, with games such as Animal Crossing leading the charge.
The online setup will work in a similar way to that on the PlayStation 2 - Nintendo will not demand any subscription fees, but to keep third party publishers happy, they can choose to introduce fees if they want to, Iwata confirmed in a recent interview with Japanese site Impress Game Watch.
Nintendo is planning to organize WiFi hotspots of its own, but gamers will be able to connect from home as well, as long as they have the necessary networking hardware. Iwata said that Nintendo would have about 1,000 hotspots of its own in Japan - numbers for Europe and North America aren't available yet.
Simplicity is still Nintendo's major concern, though, and to make things as painless as possible, Nintendo has teamed up with IGN to use its GameSpy technology, which is already used for getting PC and console games online.
Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo Games
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