DS to offer public non-gaming services by summer

Nintendo will provide non-gaming public services via Wi-Fi to DS owners by summer this year.

According to CEO Satoru Iwata, consumers will be able to download information from public Wi-Fi hotspots.

It is yet to be seen how advertisers will be able to utilise the project – but special DS-only offers are likely to be implemented by Nintendo’s commercial partners.

Speaking to Gamespot, Iwata revealed:

One of the lifestyle proposals we’d like to put into effect in the first half of this year is an experiment aimed at getting people to use their DS in public spaces as part of a larger effort to make the DS a more helpful tool for people in their everyday lives.

It’s a portable, single-architecture platform that can receive anything given a Wi-Fi hot spot with over 20 million units in use in Japan and about the same amount in the US and Europe.

I really think the idea of making it a gaming machine that’s also useful in your daily life is a good one, and possible. We’ll be keeping an eye on the experiment’s results while hopefully increasing the number of places you can use your DS in progressive steps.”