Following an agreement made with Wayport, a wireless Internet provider, Nintendo announced yesterday their plan for allowing easy and free access to wireless online play on their DS handheld: 6,000 McDonald's restuarants across the US will soon become Wi-Fi Connection hosts, permitting gamers to play Internet-enabled DS games against people all around the Net while in the comfortable vicinity of fast food.
Yes, you read that correctly.
As stated by Nintendo, players need only start up an online compatible DS game at one of the participating McDonald's to play, sans any fees or extra hardware - it's guaranteed to be simple and cost-free. The timing of this announcement comes as little surprise given the upcoming releases of the first two online games for the Nintendo DS,
Mario Kart DS and
Tony Hawk's American Sk8land, both due to ship to North American stores on November 14th. Other future titles, including
Metroid Prime Hunters and
Animal Crossing: Wild World will also make ample use of Wi-Fi Connection.
McDonald's is only the most recent corporation to catch the DS fever. Other businesses, such as Starbucks and a growing league of game shops, will also participate in hosting wireless Internet for public gaming.
Source:
GameSpot
| Barrylocke | Comment 1: 2005-10-19 17:41 |
![Barrylocke]() |
Eh? Mickey D's you say?  I think my eyes are not reading this correctly. I guess this is good for Nintendo, now that they are sort of officialy going to be online. Now little kids have an excuse to bring their DS to McDonald's. Hopefully more non fastfoods locations will follow. |
| Iain Peregrine | Comment 2: 2005-10-19 19:20 |
![Iain Peregrine]() |
Potentially good move Nintendo, potentially bad move McDonalds. Won't this just encourage the noisy gamer element to loiter? 20min (the time after which they start to consider a customer as loitering... at least where I'm from) is ample time to eat your chicken nuggets and fries, but not nearly enough time to have a good round of almost any multiplayer game. Really, I don't quite understand why McDonalds would do this.
P.S. "SK8land" is part of the official title? That's sad. |
| Galsic | Comment 3: 2005-10-19 19:36 |
![Galsic]() |
Well, if people stay there for extended periods of time, they have to eat something sooner or later and that something will be McD's fattening food. Perhaps that's what McD's is looking forward to, but after eating that crap, the people'll be playing their games rather than using that time to run around and burn all the crap off. McD's is just asking for more silly lawsuits to be lobbed their way because "Oh, McD's made me SOOOO fat!!" |
| SilverFork | Comment 4: 2005-10-19 19:54 |
![SilverFork]() |
I'd rather just pay for the service instead of killing time at a fast food joint in order to play for free, assuming that option's available; they weren't exactly clear past this deal. Course, most people probably will go this route, which is kinda another reason I wanna avoid it. Noise. Ugh.
And yes, "Sk8land" is in the name. GameSpot's apparent typo fooled me into believing that was a capital 'K' - which doesn't exactly make the 1337 SP33K look any better or worse - but GameFAQs says otherwise. Who knows? |
| No-Name | Comment 5: 2005-10-19 20:21 |
![No-Name]() |
Oh yes yes lets get our kids to play games and eat fast food so they can get lazy and fat!. It's strange I thought nintendo of america wanted us to be more active. It's an ok idea but Mickey D's isn't the best place for this sort of thing. |
| Rujuken | Comment 6: 2005-10-19 20:37 |
![Rujuken]() |
I'm not seeing how this could work well, unless you were willing to spend ample amounts of money on McD's crappy food.
I can just see the manager of a store pushing gamers out the door because they are spending all their time at McDonalds playing on their DS and not buying food. I mean how much food would you have to buy in order to not get kicked out for loitering if you planned to stay there with your friends and play for...let's say 3 hours? Doesn't sound very free to me. Especially with the pounds you would put on from eating McDonald's food all day. |
| sax_russell_the_green | Comment 7: 2005-10-19 21:03 |
![sax_russell_the_green]() |
Will online play only be available at Wireless Servers at McD.'s or can any high-speed internet hook-up suffice? Places like Whataburger and Barnes and Noble around here already offer free wireless internet. Can the DS be played there as well? |
| SilverFork | Comment 8: 2005-10-19 21:11 |
![SilverFork]() |
After an extensive search to make sense of the confusion (no thanks to many equally vague articles), you will in fact be able to use any wireless network. McDonald's is only being added to the roster of businesses who've agreed to host Wi-Fi, but you'll technically be able use it anywhere available.
Now that that's cleared up, I think I'll update the original post...
Many apologies for the inconvenience. |
| karasuman | Comment 9: 2005-10-19 21:35 |
![karasuman]() |
Makes sense. McDonald's caters to the same group that video games do: adolescent males. They're going to attract more business by having the free network, and what business they do attract is going to hang around and snack longer because of the games. |
| sax_russell_the_green | Comment 10: 2005-10-20 05:43 |
![sax_russell_the_green]() |
Thanks for the clarification! |
| Barrylocke | Comment 11: 2005-10-20 11:17 |
![Barrylocke]() |
Well, this will derinetly get the teenage young adult male population to go to McD's. Around where I live, Mickey D's just isn't the best hangout restarurant when you can go to the Tropical Smoothee Cafe, Starbucks, and Panera Bread. I wonder if they'll extend the "loitering rule" for DS gamers? |
| Snowman | Comment 12: 2005-10-20 20:57 |
![Snowman]() |
McDs though? Honestly wouldn't you rather go to something like a place in a games shop or something, as opposed to the sticky-floored fat factory kind of place? |
| Galsic | Comment 13: 2005-10-20 21:09 |
![Galsic]() |
Can ye get a Big Mac at a games shop? Uhh, no. Last I checked, me local Game Stop didn't have fries or Chicken McNuggets, either. I imagine that, for some people, McD's with free gaming networking is like heaven on Earth. |
| Snowman | Comment 14: 2005-10-21 13:41 |
![Snowman]() |
I imagine that heaven would soon get very fat and heavy and slow. If you want food then get some first. And besides, McDs isn't the only place to get food. |
| Barrylocke | Comment 15: 2005-10-21 17:33 |
![Barrylocke]() |
Now if someplace like Starbucks or Subway's got the wi-fi, then it what be awsome. At least the worst lawsuit one could do on Starbucks is burning getting burned by coffee, and we all know that lawsuit won't happen.
Oh yeah. It did. AT MCDONALD's!  |
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