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DS goes online crazy

850,000 players can't be wrong

DS goes online crazy
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DS

Well it’s official: the DS is the fastest growing online console in the world. Just over two months ago, Nintendo launched its Wi-Fi Connection service so you could play multiplayer games across the Internet and already over 850,000 people have played at least one game online. The total number of connections to the service is 21 million, so that’s an average of about 25 games per person!

Of course, that’s not so many if you take into account that the 14 million DSs that have been sold only have three games currently supporting WiFi Connection - Mario Kart DS, Tony Hawk's American SK8Land and Animal Crossing: Wild World (which isn’t even out in the UK until the 31st March!). Still, it’s a pretty good for two months.

Fact pickers might be interested to compare it with Microsoft’s Xbox console, which took over four years to reach the two million online users mark, and Sony’s PlayStation took even longer and has yet fewer online players.

And Nintendo’s got plenty more up its online sleeve.

In the US, it’s launching a demo game service, which will also be available in Europe. Called the DS Download Service it will enable you download game demos from official Nintendo hotspots in shops and other places like cafes. You’ll be able to get the games by selecting the DS Download Play option when you switch on your DS in range of the hotspot. You can then play the games for a long as you leave your DS switched on. This is because there’s no way to save a download to your DS, although we wouldn’t be surprised if someone invents a little gadget to enable this before too long.

More good news concerns future games that will also be supporting the Wi-Fi Connection. These include Metroid Prime Hunters (5th May), Ubisoft’s Lost Magic (released sometime in March we think), and Tetris DS (21st April).

Jon Jordan
Jon Jordan
A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon can turn his hand to anything except hand turning. He is editor-at-large at PG.biz which means he can arrive anywhere in the world, acting like a slightly confused uncle looking for the way out. He likes letters, cameras, imaginary numbers and legumes.