All of us at The (Real) Big Red House have been jonesin’ for a Nintendo Wii pretty badly, but the very tight availability of the consoles earlier in the year sent us in a slightly different direction — we each got a Nintendo DS Lite. Bridget got hers first as her birthday present, but before long the three of us were squabbling over whose turn it was to use it, so we bought one for Charlotte for her birthday in May. I then demanded one for myself as a Fathers’ Day gift, because I didn’t want to have to wait until August to get one.
So now that there’s no squabbling over who gets to use the console, instead we squabble over who gets to use which game cartridge. This little accessory solves some of that, plus opens up the possibilities of playing many different games (I will let you use your imagination as to wha tI’m talking about). When we’re not squabbling, though, we are having a ball. Unlike with the PS2 that sits forlorn and unloved in our family room, Charlotte can actually manage the simpler controls and has discovered that she likes to play video games. And we have had a ton of fun playing some multiplayer games together: part of our Fourth of July experience this year was all sitting together in the family room playing MarioKart.
The DS units have built-in wireless networking, you see, and can be used in ad-hoc mode to create a network between players within close physical range of one another. They can also connect to WiFi networks and connect to other players via the Internet. And, if you’ve got the web browser cartridge, you can use the DS as a portable web access device. I haven’t been able to get any of our DSes connected to our home wireless network yet, but that seems to be due to some quirk with our Linksys wireless router not liking any client that isn’t another piece of Linksys gear. But it hasn’t really been all that important yet, since we’re able to connect to one another.
Via Engadget, I read this AP story yesterday about a pilot program at Safeco Field in Seattle, where you can use your DS to connect to an interactive service offered by the ballpark. It lets you order food and drinks, watch video of the game in progress, play trivia games, and so on. It costs $5 to use the service, but considering how many different ways sporting events find to separate you from huge wads of cash, that seems pretty small. Personally, I think it’s probably worth the $5 to eliminate the hassle of buying food and drinks from the concession stands, regardless of whatever else it lets you do. (The photo above comes from a Flickr user who brought his DS to a game and tried it out.)
I know that some Mutual Friends of Torrez have had success web browsing with their DSes, so I look forward to trying that out sometime. If I could carry around my DS instead of a laptop, that would be pretty cool. And I suppose I could always duct tape my cellphone to my DS for a sort of homemade iPhone, but I might not have to for long. I read last week that there’s a video camera coming out for the DS soon, and the thing already has both a microphone and speakers, so it’s only a matter of time before someone gins up an IP videophone that uses Skype or some other Internet telephony service.
Comments:
We used my friends’ set at a Mariners Game and it was fun…in fact, I enjoyed it more than the game.
Posted by Karan [URL] on 07/10/07
