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Communications Portables (Games) Entertainment Games

Nintendo DS To Allow Free VoIP Calls 195

Posted by timothy from the biz-oriented-version-would-sell-well dept.
sm4kxd writes "Gamespot is reporting that the Nintendo DS will use "built-in wireless 802.11b networking capabilities to offer voice-over-IP chat--in effect, allowing gamers to use the DS to make free phone calls at wireless network hotspots." There's also mention of a headset, so you won't look ridiculous while doing so." The article doesn't have much more information, but the "in effect" seems important; this may only allow unit-to-unit conversations, not VoIP calls to the regular telephone network.
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Nintendo DS To Allow Free VoIP Calls More

Nintendo DS To Allow Free VoIP Calls

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  • "There's also mention of a headset, so you won't look ridiculous while doing so."

    I'm sorry - but is it just me that thinks the sight of someone talking to their Gameboy would look ridiculous? People using hands free kits already look like dopes IMO.

  • I need more though (Score:5, Funny)

    by Stevyn ( 691306 ) on Tuesday August 31, 2004 @07:53PM (#10124401)
    I still need an online music store, place to get stock quotes, a free webmail account...and something else. I can't put my finger on what it is. Oh yeah, instant messenging through AOL. Alright, now we got a hot product.

  • Standards (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bfree ( 113420 ) on Tuesday August 31, 2004 @07:55PM (#10124407)
    Maybe they might use some standard to do it so you can make calls to any compliant device (including pstn via services)? But then again this is Nintendo, I don't imagine it's very likely!

  • This is good (Score:5, Interesting)

    by zoloto ( 586738 ) on Tuesday August 31, 2004 @07:55PM (#10124412)
    and not subject to regulatory agencies. very nice, and useful as well! just think about being able to communicate with a useful tool (and toy) and you're gaming or in range of someone elses public network!

    not that I'll be buying one yet, however - this idea is very cool.

    • Re:This is good (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gcaseye6677 ( 694805 ) on Tuesday August 31, 2004 @08:02PM (#10124461)
      I'm sure that if this actually works, Asscroft will make them add wiretapping capabilities. And if the telecom monopolies have their way, Universal Service Fees as well. And then it's just an overhyped telephone. We can't have people making things that are too revolutionary, now can we?

    • Re:This is good (Score:5, Insightful)

      by v1x ( 528604 ) on Tuesday August 31, 2004 @08:03PM (#10124468) Homepage
      >> not subject to regulatory agencies That will likely change within the next few years. The situation is analogous to taxation of online purchases. Sooner or later, it will reach a threshold so that governments would start considering legislation to somehow collect taxes or regulate that sector somewhat. According to an eweek [eweek.com] article, some states are already moving in that direction.

  • Nope. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Tuesday August 31, 2004 @07:56PM (#10124420) Homepage
    Nintendo doesn't like those "all in one" things that do everything (convergence). I would be amazed if Nintendo allowed you to use the DS as a phone. It's just not going to happen.

    I think it's there to allow voice chat when playing against other people wirelessly, ala X-Box Live. I don't see what else it could be used for. Nice that the support is there. I'd like to see what else companies come up with for a way to use it, I certanly can't think of anything.

    Now all that said, I fully expect some company to release a piece of software for the DS to let you use it as a phone. I just don't think it will be built in, or that the software will be released by the big N.

    • Re:Nope. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Gothic_Walrus ( 692125 ) on Tuesday August 31, 2004 @08:06PM (#10124486) Journal
      Give it a few months. There's video conferencing for the EyeToy, XBoxes running Linux, cell phones playing NGage games...

      If the hack can be done, it will be done. Otherwise, we can't call ourselves geeks anymore. :)

      • Re:Nope. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by MBCook ( 132727 )
        Like I said, I expect it to be done. But it WON'T be Nintendo to do it. The EyeToy is a video game peripheral, it wasn't made specifically for videoconferencing.

      • Re:Nope. (Score:2, Offtopic)

        by SirSlud ( 67381 )
        I love the big N to death, but remember, this is the company that made sure its last media format was

        a) nonstandard in size
        b) spinning the opposite way of virtually every other optical drive out there

        just to discourage armchair hacking that much more.

        I think in the world of hacks, Nintendo isn't a particularly attractive target for many enthousiasts due to the streamlined and single-purposed nature of their hardware, and as a gamer, I really don't mind. The Gamecube is a game machine and isn't really sui
      • "Otherwise, we can't call ourselves geeks anymore. :) "

        I thought we lost our right to do that when we started modding up people for thinking cell phones shouldn't have cool gizmos on them.
    • My sentiments exactly. If it's not already setup to be used as a phone, it will be soon. The bigger question is will it do a good job or be worth the hassles that come with it?

    • Re:Nope. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by justforaday ( 560408 )
      one problem i see with the voicechat theory...isn't the whole wifi thing with the DS so you can play wirelessly with people who are in close proximity to you? why would you need a voicechat feature to talk to someone who's standing 5 feet away from you?

      • Re:Nope. (Score:4, Informative)

        by jx100 ( 453615 ) on Tuesday August 31, 2004 @08:19PM (#10124549)
        It has 2 wireless networks. One is either completely proprietary, or some derivative of bluetooth, and is basically meant to replace the gameboy link cable directly. The other is regular 802.11b Wifi, and this'll be used to connect to other people over the internet. The second is what this is meant to be used over.

    • Re:Nope. (Score:2, Informative)

      by suckmysav ( 763172 )

      "I would be amazed if Nintendo allowed you to use the DS as a phone. It's just not going to happen. I think it's there to allow voice chat when playing against other people wirelessly, ala X-Box Live."

      Agreed. There is no way in hell that you will ever make "free phone calls" on your DS. For you to make a telephone call, by definition your call must enter the PSTN at some point or other, and Telco companies are simply not in the habit of letting people terminate calls on their networks for free.

      This s

    • Re:Nope. (Score:2, Insightful)

      by imperialstormtrooper ( 758868 )
      great. now when some 10 year old white 50cent wanna be whoops your ass at yu gi oh or pokemon on the nintendo ds you can hear them talk trash to you, just like when the 13 year old white 50cent wanna be whoops your ass at halo and unreal tournament on the xbox and talks trash.

    • Re:Nope. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by vitaflo ( 20507 )
      You have to realize that Nintendo, being a Japanese company, is getting hit hard by cell phone providers in Japan. Gaming on phones in Japan has become a big thing, much bigger than it is here in the states. I can see why Nintendo would want a slice of that pie, given the downward trend in Japanese console gaming as of late. It's a smart move.
    • Wasn't the Famicom billed as a "family computer" complete with keyboard and disk drive? Didn't they sell endless add-on accessories to extend the functionality of the NES? I can even use my Gamecube as a Gameboy if I want to.

      Unless you mean that they don't like putting it all in one product because then they can't sell seperate add-ons--in that case, you would be right.
  • Seeing how many games of Nintendo are aimed at kids (ahem. CHIMPOKOMON!), is this a sign that they want to make the DS a device for all ages seeing how I can't imagine a 12 yr old calling his friend in Mongolia after playing a game of pokemon rockemon.
    • Either your a sony fanboy or you haven't actually played the GBA before. AFAIK a very large (possibly 50%+) of the GBA users are 15+, up to adults.

    • Re:Targetting new customers? (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      you don't know very many 12 year olds, do you?
    • I don't know why the original poster got a 0 flamebait. This is a valid arguement. You nintendo fanboys are just flaming people at random. If nintendo supports turning the DS into a bomb, you fanboys will still clap.

      Face it, the marketing scheme doesn't make sense. One day this thing will support watching porn. And parents will realize their kids weren't really playing pokemon for 12 hrs.

      • You nintendo fanboys are just flaming people at random

        Are you saying that Sony fanboys and Microsoft fanboys aren't flaming at random either? If I had a dime for every time I heard someone throw a flame at Nintendo without ever having played a GBA or a GameCube game, I'd be quite rich today.

        Just because games like Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh exist doesn't mean other good games don't exist. Pokémon is aimed at kids. You're not a kid? then don't play it, but don't say it's shit just because YOU don't l

  • What The Fish? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by YetAnotherName ( 168064 ) on Tuesday August 31, 2004 @07:57PM (#10124426) Homepage
    OK, for those of us who've never seen a Nokia N-GAGE in action, what is the big lament over? Why the webpage towards eulogizing the whole deal?

    • Re: offtopic (Score:2, Funny)

      by Tezkah ( 771144 )
      because you had to hold it like a taco to talk!

      and the games were crap version of GBA games, or PSX games with worse graphics.

  • That's not likely to come from Nintendo (Score:5, Insightful)

    by chrispyman ( 710460 ) on Tuesday August 31, 2004 @07:57PM (#10124428)
    With Nintendo's current "only about games" attitude, I highly doubt the DS will be able to be used as a WiFi VoIP phone out of the box. However, that does sound like some killer product that some 3rd party will/could come out with.

    • Re:That's not likely to come from Nintendo (Score:5, Interesting)

      by BW_Nuprin ( 633386 ) on Tuesday August 31, 2004 @08:40PM (#10124663)
      Nintendo's press footage at E3 showed the DS being used for many other purposes besides games. People taking notes, people chatting with each other via some kind of whiteboard program, etc. While I still doubt the DS will be able to make VoIP calls for free and all that that entails, I tend to think that the "only about games" attitude is merely Gamecube centric.
      • " I tend to think that the "only about games" attitude is merely Gamecube centric. "

        No, it's hardware centric. This is not at all incongruous with Nintendo's views on making 'simply a gaming machine'. The hardware is all about gaming. The wireless connection is for gaming. THe stylus screen is for gaming. ETc. All it takes to make it do something like VOIP is software. If somebody wants to make a 'phone' cartridge for the DS, then by all means! You'll notice, though, that this unit has no MP3 or m
      • Furthermore, cell-phones are very different in Japan. Most plans only come with like 20 minutes a month, and voice communication is extremely expensive. On the other hand, you can send text messages for just a few yen, so texting has taken off there big-time. Now imagine if you can introduce a portable device that, as long as you have a network connection, can make free calls and send text messages (probably could be part of the same software). That could really corner the market.
        • I'd like to see some linkage to back up your claims that most plans only come with "like 20 minutes per month." Considering Japan has real a real 3G infrastructure and all that. Seems like voice communication would be pretty simple and cheap to do.
          • Unfortuately, I don't read Japanese well enough to back that up with a NTT Docomo page, but I got the figure from a friend in a foreign exchange program when he was deciding which cell phone to purchase in Japan. He said that most of the plans there only come with around 20 minutes, and that it was because voice communication was considered a luxury.

  • Killer app? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sploo22 ( 748838 ) <dwahler@gm a i l . c om> on Tuesday August 31, 2004 @07:59PM (#10124435)
    I've always thought that wireless connectivity would be the killer app for handheld game consoles. Platforms like the GBA have always had a lot of restrictions - like needing specially-designed link cables, headphones, etc. Now that Nintendo is coming under pressure from products like the N-Gage, it seems that they're finally going to unleash their secret weapon.

    I'm just hoping that the DS will have all the appropriate goodies to go with this capability, like wireless multiplayer games, Jabber, maybe even a web browser and media player.

    • Re:Killer app? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by SimplyCosmic ( 15296 ) on Tuesday August 31, 2004 @08:28PM (#10124598) Homepage
      I have to wonder just how much of a killer app it is, though.

      The idea of being able to play another person wirelessly is a good one, obviously, but outside of young adults, are there really that many opportunities for the rest of us to use this feature all that often?

      Your social group may be different from mine, but rarely do I find myself in situations where I have multiple friends around who want to play a game, but don't have a console or pc LAN involved.

      Most of the times I'm using my GBA, it's when on a commute, where I'm not quite convinced I'd fell the need to play random strangers.
      • There are other benefits to having wireless in your handheld gaming platform, though. It can become a useful internet appliance as well, picking up bundles of data whenever you pass a hotspot. For those people who carry a gaming system around with them a lot (I'd be one of them if I were utilizing public transportation) this could be quite a bonus. Plus, you could have some kind of dating game where people raise badly-modeled mythical creatures (for instance, like this game [go.com] - like those guys could get girlf
      • I'm not quite convinced I'd fell the need to play random strangers.

        Although you might not, maybe lots of people might. After all, when you play a PC game online, or on Xbox live, you'll likely be playing with a bunch of random strangers. What's so different between that and playing on the bus (other than if you drop the connection when you're about to lose the game, the other guy can actually stand up and go punch you in the face...)?

      • Um do you play games on the internet? Other people do.

        We can play any time if we don't care who we play with.
    • Now that Nintendo is coming under pressure from products like the N-Gage

      I didn't realise that a vacuum was considered a pressure?

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday August 31, 2004 @07:59PM (#10124438)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • IT'S THE *OPINION* OF AN *ANALYST* (Score:5, Informative)

    by mcc ( 14761 ) <amcclure@purdue.edu> on Tuesday August 31, 2004 @08:01PM (#10124448) Homepage
    Note to the 98% of the Slashdot populace who does not read the article: Actually, no, in fact, all that Gamestop is reporting is that an analyst named "Boris Markovich" has the THEORY that the Nintendo DS will support voice over IP. There is however no support for this theory whatsoever.

    Nintendo representatives have publically stated they think it would be neat if there were a DS web browser that used the DS's built-in wireless ethernet to connect to the internet; however this does not mean that such a browser will ever actually occur, to my knowlege they've said nothing whatsoever about internet voice chat.
    • "Nintendo representatives have publically stated they think it would be neat if there were a DS web browser that used the DS's built-in wireless ethernet to connect to the internet; however this does not mean that such a browser will ever actually occur, to my knowlege they've said nothing whatsoever about internet voice chat."

      And then there was sourceforge, and (deity:God, Allah, Buddha, Linus) said "Holy crap it's good!"

  • Multiplayer voip (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fiz Ocelot ( 642698 ) <baelzharon&gmail,com> on Tuesday August 31, 2004 @08:01PM (#10124451)
    I think in order to call someone on a POTS network you would need a service to ultimately make that connection.

    This certainly could be used in conjunction with network play to be able to trash talk to anyone you're playing though :) "omg u hax tetris!"

  • I thought phones were getting smaller. (Score:5, Funny)

    by TheOtherAgentM ( 700696 ) on Tuesday August 31, 2004 @08:02PM (#10124456)
    Soon we will be back to the 80's brick cell phone.

  • Sounds pointless without gaming... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tktk ( 540564 ) on Tuesday August 31, 2004 @08:14PM (#10124530)
    I know it's still speculation but multiplayer over IP better be there also. If it's only VOIP, then the DS is mimicking the functions of a highly crippled cell phone. Why would I use my DS to call my friend on his DS even if it were free? We'd both have to be in range of a free access point, or have some subscription to a paid AP, and the DS would have to be standby mode to receive calls. My friends and I already have cell phones. If I was concerned about the price of making a call with my cell phone, I probably wouldn't have a DS.

    I'm getting tired of this 'featuritis' where both Sony and Nintendo are adding features like mad. I just want new portable system to play games, play games wirelessly, and play games over IP via Gameboy Live or PS Live.

    • Re:Sounds pointless without gaming... (Score:4, Informative)

      by jd ( 1658 ) <imipakNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Tuesday August 31, 2004 @08:33PM (#10124628) Homepage Journal
      Multiplayer over IP, even on "regular" machines, is a pain. The problem is that you really do need multicasting, if you're doing anything more than very trivial stuff, when linked to more than a very few machines.


      The reason is simple. Let's say you're using a regular (ie: unicast) connection to link everyone to everyone else. For N players, you need N * (N-1) connections to link every player's machine to everyone else's. (Remember, you need to pipe data both ways.) The number of streams is rising almost with the square of the number of users. With that kind of exponential explosion in bandwidth needs, it doesn't take much to saturate even a broadband connection.


      For multicast, one person transmits once to a virtual address, and all subscribers receive a copy of that transmission. Growth is therefore linear. N users, N streams and no more. That's at worst, however. Multicasting doesn't duplicate over a LAN, so if you have multiple computers on the same LAN, they don't each need those N streams. The one copy of all of the data will be visible to all of the users' machines.


      The day that regular ISPs give everyone native multicast will be the day that multiuser gaming explodes from 2-player or 4-player (on the same high-speed LAN) to being 16-player or 32-player over the entire Internet.


      (Ob. Netrek reference: Yes, 16-player games over the entire Internet already exist, and they don't need multicasting. They aren't exactly sophisticated, though. Netrek played with the graphics and gameplay sophistication of Doom 3 would likely chew up rather more bandwidth.)

      • Re:Sounds pointless without gaming... (Score:5, Informative)

        by Jerf ( 17166 ) on Tuesday August 31, 2004 @09:48PM (#10125024) Journal
        Let's say you're using a regular (ie: unicast) connection to link everyone to everyone else. For N players, you need N * (N-1) connections to link every player's machine to everyone else's.

        Yes, it's a real pity this is true, or we could create massive IM networks with millions of simultaneous users. That would be so cool.

        Wait a minute...

        Hey, I've got an idea! Let's designate one of the machines as a server, and have it collect and transmit all the data from a centralized source! Then the overall bandwidth needed still goes up effectively linearly, and only one machine needs a lot of bandwidth! That just might work!

        Oh damn, looks like somebody already came up with that general idea.

        </sarcasm>

        Multicast is cool and all, but let's not overstate the problem it is solving. People play 64-player games of Quake 2 or 3 or various Unreals all the time, today (and I'm not into that scene so there may be even more), because a 64-player game of Unreal is a mere 64 bi-directional connections, not the 4,032 (unidirectional) you are claiming. I think you need to spend some more time studying real networking before pitching obscure solutions that by and large have yet to be needed by the common man. (You do realize that Quake et al doesn't ship the entire graphics load over the network, right? Your last paragraph seems to strongly hint otherwise...)
        • Multicasting is very cool. I think that you underestimate the usefulness of it.

          It's (supposedly) easy for, say, AOL/TW to start a large-scale chat system with millions of users.

          Is it easy for you and me? Of course not. My cable modem's upstream tops out at 384kbps. Multicast would alleviate that bottleneck.

          Streaming audio and video is hideously expensive to operate currently. Multicast eliminates that problem.

          Even distributing programs or other data is more efficient. BitTorrent is cool, but horri
    • "Why would I use my DS to call my friend on his DS even if it were free?"

      You wouldn't because you're not 10 years old and playing with a friend of yours.
    • Well since major cities are putting wireless on subways airplanes are adding it as a free feature and pretty soon every mcdonalds and starbucks will have free wireless let alone just about every networked house (Recent security issues are balony) it will basically mean free phone to anyone.

      Not a big deal for those with a cell phone but for those who realize that cell phones are ridiculously expensive this is a godsend.

      Once this takes off it will have software to quickly switch between hotspots and use ce

  • Gateways are only a matter of time (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <imipakNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Tuesday August 31, 2004 @08:15PM (#10124534) Homepage Journal
    When VoIP first appeared for actual telephony, rather than just machine-to-machine calls, the telecom companies were absolutely livid. They even pushed for ISPs to be charged as "long distance carriers", even if no VoIP took place, because it could.


    (This would have meant that you would have paid long-distance rates to dial into dial-up ISPs - possibly more as Mom-and-Pop ISPs just wouldn't have the clout to arrange the kind of deals that most long-distance providers work out with the local telephone companies.)


    What really got to the telecos was not the idea of computer-to-computer chat, which had been around for some time, but the gateways linking the Internet to the regular telephone exchanges. A lot of people were buying such exchanges, hooking them up, and basically allowing any Internet user (for a fee the guy with the exchange could set) to dial ANYONE in the local calling area of that gateway.


    I'm going to predict that Nintendo geeks'll have similar gateways rigged up (with the cries and screams of telecos & Nintendo ringing in their ears) within a year. It's just a case of breaking the protocol and writing a simple translator for one of the myriad of modular gateways that now exist.


    With British Telecom switching to a pure IP-based telephone network (they're abandoning the dedicated switched-circuit approach completely), and where Nintendo's encumbering licenses are largely considered invalid (there are independent software developers for Nintendo in the UK, and Nintendo has failed in efforts to stop them), I am going to predict that the UK will have the greatest interest in such a gateway and will likely see some of the earliest attempts at one.


    The US, with its DMCA and other assorted copyright extensions, is simply not friendly to that kind of R&D. The risks are high and the benefits are low.


    India and China have a good tech industry, fewer problems with copyright, etc, but don't really have enough high-speed infrastructure to make VoIP realistic, right now.

  • KISS (Score:3, Insightful)

    by EodLabs ( 722242 ) on Tuesday August 31, 2004 @08:23PM (#10124574)
    God, Keep it Simple Stupid. If you wanna shock the game crowd.... Big one here... Give them eye candy, not a new phone.

  • What will my Nintendo DS phone number be? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jmcmunn ( 307798 ) on Tuesday August 31, 2004 @08:27PM (#10124594)
    So can people call me through VoIP as well, if I am at home using my DS or at a hotspot somewhere looking like a dork playing games? Will I be able to have it ring me while in the middle of a lonely single player game of pacman, when one of my buddies wants to get his ass kicked in mario party or whatever multiplayer game?

    Let's hope that Nintendo does the "phone thing" better than N-Gage did the "game thing". I wonder if those two markets of portable electronics are ready to merge just yet. Maybe we're close...

  • so what's the new price with tax? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Romancer ( 19668 ) <romancerNO@SPAMdeathsdoor.com> on Tuesday August 31, 2004 @08:29PM (#10124604) Journal
    Now the Govt. can request that they be able to wiretap your new DS and the price will jump.

  • Headset? (Score:3, Funny)

    by A Boy and His Blob ( 772370 ) on Tuesday August 31, 2004 @08:29PM (#10124608)
    Hopefully this doesn't look anything like the last Nintendo headset I owned. [atarihq.com] Otherwise I doubt that I "won't look ridiculous."
  • Folding Side Talking for everyone!

    Anyhow, the DS pics show the microphone (built in) is just under the bottom screen, close to the directional pad. Speakers are next to the top screen.

    Yes, you will need a headset.

    The DS is shaping up to be pretty rocking. I'm waiting for some word on possible web browsers / IM clients, which would rock pretty hard. Will it run Linux?

  • Can you say Warboy? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Lurk3r ( 786010 )
    "built-in wireless 802.11b networking"

    How long do you think it will take for people to start wardriving with one of these. Can you say Warboy?

  • I use the skype (Free VOIP) on my linux box now. (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What's the big deal? Free box-to-box VOIP is kinda old news at this point.

    Skype.com is the only cross platform solution I'm aware of. Free for skype-to-skype PC calls. Also has an IM client built in.

    They also sell "phone cards" to dial POTS from your PC. The gui has a typical touchpad interface.

    They don't have POTS-to-skype yet, which needs some type of "DYN-dns" infrastructure underneath, but they are planning on offering this add-on for some monthly cost later on.
    • The big deal is that (if it's true) half the kids in your street are going to have this, and when they do they wil laugh at the idea of paying for mobile phone calls. I know lots of children who spend MOST of their pocket money on phone calls at the moment (we don't have free local calls here in Britain).

      I think it might be the biggest news story this year.

      Nintendo have historically had few serious competitors in he mobile gaming market, and they got off very lightly against the N-Gage, but they know that
  • "There's also mention of a headset, so you won't look ridiculous..."

    I'm no fashion guru, but I can tell you that people talking using a headset most certainly do look ridiculous. It didn't look cool in the 80's. It doesnt look cool now.
    • This whole fear of looking ridiculous when using a headset, talking to an N-Gage, playing Gameboy, etc. is just pathetic.

      Let's take the N-Gage first, since it's a /. favorite. The biggest reason talking into an N-Gage looks ridiculous has nothing to do with how the phone is held (the "taco" side-talking deal). It's because the N-Gage is a crappy device. Bad gaming (controls and content), mediocre phone (there are so damn many better options) and boring old memory card MP3 (there are memory card MP3 pla

  • Looking ridiculous? (Score:5, Funny)

    by carcosa30 ( 235579 ) on Tuesday August 31, 2004 @08:47PM (#10124716)
    Since when did looking ridiculous matter to the sorts of people who use this kind of thing?

    Actually though this sounds like a really sweet product...

  • Smart move, although probably not what we expect (Score:5, Informative)

    by CodeMaster ( 28069 ) on Tuesday August 31, 2004 @08:48PM (#10124719)
    Smart move Nintendo. Use a proven technology, and enable better GAMING experience.

    Did anyone really think that this will be done just so we can make free calls in hotspots?

    1. Nintendo, gaming, voice chat... rings a bell? The main application will probably be to connect to other unites so people can talk to each other while they play.
    2. VOIP to any number will require a gateway to the POTS which costs $$$ (where Vonage makes their money on...).

    Nevertheless - pretty slick!

    get a free ipod! [freeipods.com] This really works... [iamit.org]

  • free trade works (Score:4, Insightful)

    by chuckfucter ( 703084 ) on Tuesday August 31, 2004 @09:13PM (#10124813) Journal
    If you consider the GBA a console, which it really is, the gba is the best selling console ever. Constant renovation and competition is what pushes this company. Nintendo started out making arcade games and after the mario brothers hit they kept that same character, in fact almost any game with him in it goes gold. With n-gage starting to appeal to the masses it's kinda common sense that nintendo would have to redesign in product to keep ahead. Nintendo is actually a great company and I'm glad that they are testing new and cool waters.

    • With n-gage starting to appeal to the masses


      Does 'appeal' mean something different in your version of English? They were awful devices, not exactly much competition for the GBA SP. Very few people bought them because they were clearly badly designed. A shop near me is trying to get rid of their Ngage game stock at less than half price and still not selling them.

    • I have yet to see an ngage in use outside a store.
      I see GBAs daily.

  • Exposure (Score:2, Interesting)

    by prozaic ( 650755 )
    The headset is encouraging.
    Holding a 2.4GHz emitter against the side of your skull does not sound like a good idea.

  • bets until pstn gateway (Score:2, Interesting)

    by sPaKr ( 116314 )
    Lets start taking bets on how long it will take to hack up a ptsn gateway. This migtht force private VOIP into critical mass?

  • DS Token Features (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Mulletproof ( 513805 ) on Tuesday August 31, 2004 @10:28PM (#10125224) Homepage Journal
    "Gamespot is reporting that the Nintendo DS will use "built-in wireless 802.11b networking capabilities to offer voice-over-IP chat--in effect, allowing gamers to use the DS to make free phone calls at wireless network hotspots."

    Ok, that's nifty, but nifty doesn't sell consoles or handhelds. I'd wager that 80% (conservatively) of their buyers could care less, especially when Nintendo's target audience has tradionally been pre-teens. Same with the second touch screen. It's as if they're trying to compensate for their lack of innovation and poor market performance lately with nifty features, without realizing their impact on sales will be negilable in lieu of the former and a break from Mario 12.

    I'd be more excited if I thought this was actually going to do anything in the course of my regular gaming, but I suspect it'll be more along the lines of gameboy to gamecube connectivity-- Big fat deal. I know some of you will be happy, but most gamers are going to care less unless you see some real application here. That, and I really don't see too many people ditching the cell phones they already have and hunting down a hotspot just to make a free call by dialing down the center with 1-800-leftrightright-downupAB.

    With the PSP on the horizon, I smell serious blood in the water because the DS is shaping up to be pretty weak from initial reports.
  • I ran across a video at the beginning of August (I tried to find it, but no luck) that demo'd a bunch of Nintendo DS software. It was a pretty cool vid, some of the stuff on there was amazing. One of the things they showed was a stylus based IM chat of some sort. One screen had incoming messages, teh stylus screen was for outgoing. The video was kind of neat: "Draw Mario!", and whoever was piloting the thing was drawing Mario for their guest.

    Okay, not the most mind blowing thing in the world, but I can
  • ...the pictures in the Side Talking website the poster linked to is bloody hilarious.

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