Nintendo Brings Free WiFi Gaming to DS

More than 7,500 locations soon to be flooded by people rubbing in unison and gamers too.

Nintendo has made good on its promise to make online gaming easy and affordable for everyone. The company has announced a new deal that will let you play DS games online at more than 7,500 locations in the UK.

Nintendo's hopes rest with Mario's driving game

At this year's E3, Nintendo said that it hoped to get more than 90 per cent of DS owners online. Experts scoffed. Up until now, the fastest online adoption has been on Xbox Live, but even there only about 10 per cent of owners have signed up.

Nintendo's answer to this problem was to make it easy to get online and to make it cheap. The latter part is Nintendo's biggest coup. Access at the 7,500 locations - ranging from McDonalds restaurants and Coffee Republic java shacks to hotels and train stations - will be completely free. All you need to do is bring your DS along and get gaming.

There's a snag, though. Right now there aren't any online-enabled games. The first to arrive in the UK is Mario Kart DS, which brings the manic karting action that shot the series to stardom to the twin-screened DS. The game includes the best of the old tracks from past series instalments and a wealth of new ones too.

Nintendo is also working on an online version of Animal Crossing and of course there's also Metroid Prime: Hunters to look forward to. It's not just Nintendo that is getting in early, though. Activision will soon release Tony Hawk's American Sk8land for DS, which allows you to trick it up online with players around the world.

Like on PlayStation 2, there is no all-encompassing online framework, such as Microsoft has in Xbox Live. But Nintendo has promised that all its games will be free to play online. Third parties do, though, have the option of charging you to play their games online but no one has dared to try that yet.

If you can't make it to one of the thousands of free hotspots, you'll still be able to go online using your home WiFi equipment or, failing that, a WiFi dongle that you can attach to a wired PC.

To find out whether there's a Nintendo WiFi Connection hotspot near you, head to the sites for Nintendo partners The Cloud and BT Openzone where you can search by post code.

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo Games