Nintendo clarifies Wi-Fi details
Launch to coincide with Mario Kart, infrastructure details TBC.
Nintendo has reiterated that it plans to launch its global wireless multiplayer service for Nintendo DS by the end of the year, but has withdrawn comments made to this website earlier today by one of its PR associates regarding specifics of how it will work.
"We plan to launch by the end of the year," Nintendo UK's PR Manager Rob Saunders told us this afternoon, but the company has yet to announce what form the launch will take. At E3 this year, Nintendo said the Wi-Fi Connection service would be in place for the launch of Mario Kart DS, which is set for a November 11th release in Europe. "Mario Kart will be the first Wi-Fi [Connection] game," Saunders confirmed.
Earlier a representative from PR firm Cake, which acts for Nintendo in the UK, suggested that you would be able to go online from your home broadband connection as well as existing hotspots and others that Nintendo plans to install. Whether or not that is the case, it's not something Nintendo UK is announcing at this point.
Furthermore, while Metroid Prime: Hunters is now set to launch worldwide in 2006 with support for Wi-Fi Connection, Saunders added that the game is currently only set for a spring launch in the USA - despite comments from Cake suggesting spring was a worldwide target.