Tuesday, June 10, 2008

It's About Time, Nintendo

Nintendo has the worlds's most popular current generation console and the world's most popular handheld system. Both of them have had, since their releases, Wi-Fi capabilities. A few games on each system actually utilize it, too.

Now comes the breakthrough that should have been in place, as part of a larger and much more ambitious online plan, since these systems got launched. Today, I was able to wirelessly download demos of DS games through the Wii's Nintendo Channel. I played Arkanoid DS and Crosswords DS. It really worked.

It's a shame Nintendo is so sheepish about online play. They could be very successful with it if they were just a little - no, not a little, a whole lot of aggressively more ambitious about all of it.

Smash Brothers Brawl and Mario Kart Wii were good starts, as is this development for DS owners, but competitors are already in the deep end of the online pool while Nintendo is still sticking its toes in the water to see how cold it is. I just want to run up behind them and push them in sometimes.

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