Sorry for all the Nintendo DS stuff today, but it’s the day Nintendo is holding their big announcement event, so a lot of new info will be released today.

“1UP”:http://1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3135204 has a few more details from the Japanese press conference last night. A couple things worthy of noting:

Taking the stage first, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata introduced some of the fundamental capabilities of the DS, including the ability to share and download games. Using the system’s wireless connection, players can download game demos from wireless store kiosks or share games for multiplayer using a single card. As mentioned yesterday, Nintendo also plans to use this feature with its next Pokemon movie, beaming data to the handhelds of theater-goers.

Finally, Miyamoto introduced Tsunekazu Ishihara, representing the Pokemon Company, who displayed Ambrella’s top-down racer Pokemon Dash. This game exploits an unusual feature of the DS that hasn’t gotten much exposure yet — it actually uses a separate slot for Game Boy Advance games, letting players simultaneously plug in a GBA cartridge and a DS card. Plugging a GBA Pokemon game in while Dash is running unlocks more tracks in Dash, depending on what Pokemon players have caught in the GBA game.

Sounds like there are going to be a ton of interesting options for the DS. I wonder how common those demo downloading kiosks will be in the US though.

The article also vaguely mentions online internet play, and the that fact that with some games you can play multiplayer with several DS units, but only one of them has to have the game. The rest would have the relevant parts of the game beamed to it wirelessly.

The US Nintendo press conference is supposed to start in a couple of hours I think, so expect more details from all your favorite gaming sites then.

*Update*

“Gamespot”:http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/10/07/news_6109973.html has an article giving more details about the wireless download, demo kiosks, and movie theater integration.

“Gamespot”:http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/10/07/news_6109950.html of every Japanese DS release currently planned. Here are a few highlights:

Nintendo:
* Super Mario 64 DS
* Metroid Prime: Hunters
* WarioWare Inc. DS
* Mario Kart DS (tentative title)
* Animal Crossing DS (tentative title)
* Super Mario Brothers DS (tentative title)
* Nintendogs (tentative title)

Square Enix:
* Egg Monster Heroes
* New Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles title
* New Dragon Quest Monsters title
* New Seiken Densetsu title
* New Slime MoriMori Dragon Quest title
* Final Fantasy III (Never ported to US before)

Looks like a lot of additions to Square’s series RPG’s.

Konami
* Boktai (tentative title)
* Castlevania (tentative title)

An addition to the always successful Castlevania series, and a new Boktai game. They should be able to come up with some interesting gameplay with a sun sensor in addition to all of the other gizmos on the DS.

Related posts:

Nintendo announces Q2 releases
Nintendo Offers free wi-fi at McDonalds in US
Waiting for Wii titles? Why not get GameCube ones?
Nintendo to introduce paid online play service
Nintendo History of Mario wall clock

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