More WiFi News
In an interview with Jim Merrick (Nintendo of Europe), Puissance-Nintendo managed to squeeze out a lot of information on the upcoming WiFi service from Nintendo. For those willing to read the entire thing I recommend you do so by clicking here. If not here is a summary of some of the things covered:
– There won’t be a gamertag. The DS instead generates a username that the player never sees. To add people to your friends list you generate a password which you give to your friend or alternatively meet them in real life and have the two machines communicate the details to eachother.
– Duplicate names are allowed and you may have different names for each game. All theses names are connected by your invisible generated username.
– You can link your account to the Nintendo of America or Nintendo of Europe websites (nothing on Australia yet) and view your friends list, tournaments and high scores on the site.
– You have connection ‘profiles’. Profiles store the information of what hotspot you are connecting to. For example if at home all you need to do is enter the SSID and WEP (like a PC), if using a public hotspot you will need extra details such as a username and password. These details are saved as a profile.
– Use of filters will allow matchmaking to be changed to your tastes. Filters for friends only, skill level and country are currently the only filters known.
– Nintendo will not charge for developers to use their free matchmaking services and they still allow for alternatives to be used (the developer may want its own matchmaking or create a MMORPG).
– Having voice in game takes up a lot of resources and it is implied strongly that there is no voice chat in Mario Kart DS. Nintendo also have no plans for the Voice Over IP demo called “”DS Speak”” shown at E3, it was simply a demo which may prove useful for communication orientated games (Animal Crossing perhaps?)
– Nintendo plan on inventively covering up the use of the internet. For example catching a train to your friends place in Animal Crossing instead of seeing a ‘connecting please wait…’ screen or not being able to buy a ticket if a friend is offline.
