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Portables (Games) Businesses Nintendo Wireless Networking Hardware

Nintendo Launches Wi-Fi Campaign for DS 79

Posted by Zonk from the get-your-wireless-here dept.
The Inquirer has the word that Nintendo has launched a massive theatre-based advertising blitz for the DS. The campaign launch features a trailer length film entitled "The Sad, Agonizing Tale of Bhuvan Ganguly". From the IGN Story: "'There is a great element of surprise to this ad,' says Nintendo's advertising manager Kelli Koenig. 'The spot opens on a very dramatic situation that you just wouldn't expect to be related to video games or Nintendo. The spot clearly demonstrates Wi-Fi as it relates to the Nintendo brand with a nod to Mario Kart DS and it does this in a magical, clearly ownable by Nintendo kind of way.'"
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Nintendo Launches Wi-Fi Campaign for DS More

Nintendo Launches Wi-Fi Campaign for DS

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  • Wrong Timing (Score:3, Insightful)

    by superpulpsicle ( 533373 ) on Monday August 01, 2005 @01:24PM (#13215349)
    Talk about the wrong time to invest in a multi-million dollar cinema ads, when cinema attendence in general plummeted some record breaking 20 weeks in a roll.

    • Re:Wrong Timing (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It's not as bad as some people make it out to be.

      What movie came out last summer?

      The Passion of the Christ.

      So people who don't usually watch movies, watched that one, and made last summer a REALLY big one.

      http://money.cnn.com/2005/06/16/news/newsmakers/bo xoffice_sales/ [cnn.com]

    • Re:Wrong Timing (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Movies are always a good place to advertize gaming stuff because the people who see movies are reasonably young (13-25) and have excessive money to spend on entertainment related products.

    • Re:Wrong Timing (Score:2, Informative)

      by demana ( 753243 )
      Plummeting? Don't believe the hype. http://slate.msn.com/id/2123286/ [msn.com]

      Consider how earlier this year entertainment journalists rattled on for months about a slump in the American box office--"Box Office Slump In Its 19th Week"--as if it were a sporting event in which the Hollywood studios couldn't get winning hits. The story would have been different if they had seen the data on Page 16 in the 2005 Three Month Revenue Report. Instead of a box-office decline, the studios actually took in more from the U.S. b

  • That's nice, but... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by vertinox ( 846076 ) on Monday August 01, 2005 @01:24PM (#13215350)
    Exactly how does one get to use Nintendo Wi-Fi? I don't think the articles or the Ad let me know. Do I go sign up somewhere and hunt for hot spots around town or do I go out and get a Wireless router? Since I already have a DS, inquiring minds want to know.
    • I'm guessing hotspots and either some kind of router or USB plugin for your computer. Or it could be an on-cart TCP/IP implementation that'll connect via 802.11 to any existing WiFi network.

    • Re:That's nice, but... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by octover ( 22078 ) on Monday August 01, 2005 @03:26PM (#13216516) Homepage
      Exactly how does one get to use Nintendo Wi-Fi?

      They wait till Fall.

      It appears as though Mario Kart will be the kick-off title for this. It doesn't come out till Nov. 7, that means 3 months before you will even be able to use this. Why spend the 30 seconds explaining something can't use right away, or even all that soon. Instead the teaser works perfectly to get buzz about it out in the public. Potentially tipping the casual gamer deciding between a PSP or a DS to purchase the DS, cause soon they will be able to play Mario Kart wirelessly.
      • It was kind of a sad ad. I mean, here we are, going to see movies, racing our super-fancy cars, and anticipating our WiFi DS access, and this poor bastard's pushing his li'l cart through the desert eating a half-rotten banana? I kind of want to donate the $150 instead.

      • Re:That's nice, but... (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        If I'm not mistaken, AnimalCrossing DS will be the first title. It's reported that you can use any 802.11b connection and Nintendo will be making a DS router for the less techy among us.
        • IGN (whose game release date lists I like) says this of the games with announced Wi-Fi functionality:

          October 18, 2005 Tony Hawk DS
          November 7, 2005 Mario Kart DS
          November 21, 2005 Animal Crossing DS

          Mario Kart is really going to kick it off, Tony Hawk will almost certainly be less popular.
      • According to IGN's release date list, [ign.com] the first online game will be Tony Hawk DS. [ign.com] Strange, because Nintendo hasn't really even discussed the title apart from a brief showing at their E3 press conference. IGN's list claims Tony Hawk will be released October 18, about two weeks before Mario Kart.
        Of course, it's entirely possible that Tony Hawk will be delayed a bit. It doesn't seem very Nintendo-like to let a third-party game be the focal point of a new feature.

        In other news:
        In IGN's August 1 mailbag, [ign.com] C

    • Re:That's nice, but... (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Nintendo "Ni-Fi" will be available at any regular wireless hotspot, meaning you can play at home, at Starbucks, internet cafes, wherever you can get wireless internet. For those with no home wireless router, Nintendo is also offering a USB plug that acts as a router for the DS, and I assume also for the Revolution. The service is free, but the first game for it won't be coming out until fall.

  • My opinion? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by WhatAmIDoingHere ( 742870 ) * <sexwithanimals@gmail.com> on Monday August 01, 2005 @01:26PM (#13215375) Homepage
    Commercials aren't telling us what they're selling any more. If I'm going to be a good little consumer, I have to know what I'm supposed to drop my desposible income on. Bananas? Old guys with carts?

    It reminds me of the movie "Alone in the Dark" if you've seen it, you may understand why:

    Alone in the Dark opens with a long text crawl explaining the movie (because Uwe Boll is an idiot, but that's not the point). They added it because nobody in the test audiences knew what the fuck the was happening in the movie.

    If you have to go back and say "Oh, this is what's going on" or "This is what we're selling" you should probably re-think what you're doing.
    • Just like that damn 1984 macintosh commercial. God knows that didn't sell a single mac.
    • It is called "experiential advertising." Most car commercials are of this type. OTOH, I hate most car commercials, and would rather see something clever w/o being obtuse.
      • So "There's a guy. He has a cart. He ate a banana." makes people interested in whatever you say after it?
        • When the guy throws the bananna into the road he interacts with a road that he cannot see. Pick your metaphor; wireless boning the information 'super-highway' or, just possibly, wireless interacting at a distance. The parent poster was making the point that the advert is selling the experience, not the product.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • I always thought it would be realy cool if you had an advertisement where there were two little stick figures fighting Xaio Xaio style, and then the guy getting his ass kicked would drink Red Bull or something, and beat the living hell out of the other guy. I think it would go over well.

    • Re:My opinion? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Soul-Burn666 ( 574119 )
      Agreed.
      This commercial makes you think that throwing things on the ground causes car accidents miles away.

      But it's most likely just a generic commercial. There are many generic commercials that show nothing specific (think "people gathering", "pastoralic view of mountains", etc) and then sold to companies who just add their logo.

      I've already seen specific commercials used by more than one company (in different countries tho) to advertise different things.

      • not generic at all (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        if you think about it a bit more, it's not just 'throwing things on the ground causes car accidents miles away" (the cars never hit each other anyway). it's more that the car slipped (on the bananna peel) and then spun out. much like what would happen if you drove over a bananna peel in mario kart (hence the mario cart clips at the end).

        and the fact that the guy throwing the bananna and the guy driving the car are miles apart is meant to highlight the wireless connection feature. you can play/affect other p
        • After reading that I agree. But advertising is usually aimed towards those who aren't in the know. As you said, the only ones that can understand this commercial are those who know Mario Kart, and not all those who have a DS or planning to buy one.
          • The Mario Kart franchise has sold far upwards of 15 million units between the US and Japan, even more if you consider other markets. The DS has probably sold 6 million systems worldwide. I'd say that's a fairly significant bunch of Mario Kart fans that don't have a DS. Not to mention the millions more that have played the game on a friend's system.
      • Yeah I can't stand stuff that requires even the smallest amounts of brain power to understand either.
    • Just a quick sidenote on your analogy... I was hunting through the local movie rental store and saw "Alone in the Dark" and was like "Hey, that was a cool oldschool 3D game" and I saw Christian Slaters name (who I actually like) then I get home pop it in the DVD player and see Uwe Boll and was thinking, oh crap, then Tara Reid manages the WORST on-screen performance I have ever seen in my life... This was utter trash, I'm still dumbfounded by the poor quality of that "movie."

      We actually laughed when the 12
    • You know, I was going to say something smarmy about your post...but then I watched the ad. I'd probably say that it would've benefitted for the 'Uwe Boll crawl' treatment.

      Not that I'd expect there to be too many Friends fans around here, but I really liked Chandlers approach to advertising..."Socks. They go on your feet" or "Pants. They're like shorts, but longer." Would it hurt people to be that obvious sometimes?
      • Would it hurt people to be that obvious sometimes?

        Yes. People don't like ads, unless they are attracted by sex, action, humor, or in this case, mystery.

        The faster a viewer can learn what the ad is for, the quicker he can tune it out because he doesn't care. By concealing the product for as long as possible, the advertiser maximizes total time spent paying attention. Many of the most famous ad campaigns have used this technique, including 1984, Infiniti, and the recent Geico ones.

    • Re:My opinion? (Score:3, Informative)

      by 88NoSoup4U88 ( 721233 )
      This isn't the commercial which is selling you the 'product', but is merely an introduction of it.
      Making people curious (as you seem to be ; as am I) is also one goal in today's marketing, and they apparently succeeded in it ;)

      And yes, I laughed out loud when Alone in the Dark started with that amateurish text scrolling at the start.

    • Way to contradict yourself.

      The advert does exactly what you ask; it doesn't explain itself.

      But it *IS* selling bananas and old guys with carts, and some kind of weird
      interaction between something happening on one side of the world and the other.

      It just so happens that Mario (old guy) Kart (uhh..) which has a very banana
      skidding thing going on with it, will be wireless, which is.. well.. there you
      go.

      No scrolling text saying "by the way this is a nod to Mario Kart", it's very
      subtle and artistic but the target
      • What's the target market? The same kind of people who think XxX2 kicks ass? The people who pay to see 2Fast 2Furious? Or do you mean people with disposable incomes? Here's a tip: Not everyone in the USA is "artistic" and 95% of us aren't going to be paying that close attention to an advertisement anyway. "Oh look, an old guy. *picks up cell phone*"

        You can't be "artistic" when you're selling things to a culture based around ADD.

        • Re:My opinion? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by NekoXP ( 67564 ) on Monday August 01, 2005 @11:02PM (#13219297) Homepage
          Okay so you have ADD *AND* you're a cynical bastard? :D

          I guess you aren't the target market, but that doesn't make you right. Being
          weird and artistic (rather than loud, obnoxious, brash and right to the point)
          is odd and eye-catching.

          The first thing you do is wonder why this guy is pushing the cart. And he eats a
          banana.. and you wonder what is coming next. That's the whole point. Explaining
          the movie at the beginning is ADD culture in action; listening to focus groups
          and so on. Here's a hint; maybe this advert will be on at March Of The Penguins.
          I think Nintendo are trying to hit up a little more mature an audience here, the
          discerning geek or Nintendo-fan, and not the 11 year old.

          Either way if you aren't a hyperactive junky who is munching his hotdog and
          popcorn a good 22 minutes before the movie starts, you might be interested. In
          fact the people who DO pay attention and ARE interested are more readily going to
          be the kind of people who play games because they have staying power and attention
          spans; they're very similar to the Japanese gamer ethic, that "hardcore RPG gamer"
          who will sit and play Pokemon through 10 times until they get every damn animal,
          patiently.

          They're not going to be sitting there, fiddling the stylus for 10 minutes then
          throwing the DS across the room and buying a PSP because they are irrationally
          bored of it.

          You understand or did I go on too long? Hey, look at me when I'm talking to you :)

          Neko
    • "Alone in the Dark opens with a long text crawl explaining the movie"

      A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...
      • Star Wars explains the plot up to the point in the movie, it doesn't say "Luke thinks his father is dead, but Vader will cut off his hand and then reveal that he is his father".

        It's not needed because most don't have trouble following the basic plot of Star Wars :)

    • I'm sure you're a good engineer. You're thinking straight, and you want rational ads which explain products so you can make decisions about them.

      Unfortunately, that makes you a crappy advertiser.

      Ads are about emotion. Let's face it, most products we buy are very similar to other products in the same category. Nike's shoes aren't better or worse than Puma's. Chiquita's bananas taste the same as Del Monte's. Toyota's cars are bound by the same speed limits as Porsches. People don't buy Nike's shoes because

  • Just what we need, more advertising before movies start.

    Nothing like wasting your customers time (up to 20 minutes) to get them to come back for more.

    I hate the arrogance and huberis of making someone spend a punishing amount of time just to get the "privalage" of spending their hard earned money.
    • Ever been to a Regal Cinema? They have something called "The 20" which is commercials for TV shows and COMMERCIALS BETWEEN THEM. 20 minutes of commercials. After that, we get the "CONSUME SNAX" 5 minutes of crappy animation with xTREME snacks jumping at you from the screen. 15 minutes or more of previews. So that's 40 minutes. Plus product placement in the movies...
      • Not that I agree with the idea of showing commercials in theaters, but...

        Usually "The 20" and other non-trailer commercials are shown prior to the posted start time, so they're only replacing the ad slide show or blank screen that theaters used to have before the trailer reel. So if you get there on time, you don't have to sit through the extra ads.

        Even better, show up 20 minutes late and you can skip the trailers, too!
        • Yeah, honestly I'd rather have the 20 running if I show up early than those crappy slide shows. And I have never had it go past the "start time" when the normal previews and commercials play. Actually, at the very beginning the 20 had custom made short films that were often very good, but those are long gone. And many of the movie/music/tv ad sequences are long and developed enough that they are at least informative about the product, which is a rarity.
          • Well, if you don't mind the commercials then lucky for you I guess. I'd pay an extra 5 bucks to have a blank screen while I'm waiting for the movie to start. No crappy pop music either, please. Sure, I could wait until the movie (or at least the previews) started before going in, but then I'm going to get the last choice of seats, and I'll possibly have to climb over people to get to any seat at all.

            So my policy is that I don't go go theaters that show commercials. If I go to a new theater I ask them at

            • My local theatre shows commercials, but for local (as in across the street) businesses that could actually be considered relevent for the audience. They are all 30 seconds, maybe 4 minutes total, and there are NO big advertiser "blowing your head away with sound" commercials. It was funny actually, because when I went to see charlie and the chocolate factory, people kept talking when the movie started, because they didn't get the big green preview screen telling them to start wrapping up their conversations
      • "The 20" ends at the published start time. I used to do competitive ad audits where I would have to write down all the crap that played during the 20 and record the commercial lengths about once a month. For doing this I got paid 8 bucks, plus my movie ticket. I also had to record the start and end times of the commercials and the names of the trailers that played. Not a bad way to see a movie once a month although sometimes there are restrictions on what you can pick. For example any non-Disney movie. Any
      • Oh and I forgot to note that crappy snack animation only lasts 60 seconds...but there is also the annoying Will Rogers Institute snack combo "buy even more overpriced snacks in a combo and help children" ad they always slap on next to it. And they change the crappy Will Rogers ad fairly often from what I noticed, but its still the same ad with the same words...I don't know why they waste money refilming it so many times...... bah, the Will Rogers Institute snack combo ads are one of my most hated ads of all
    • Arrogance AND hubris eh?

      Just show up later. You know you have a 15 minute+ buffer of ads before showtime now a days.

    • Re:Just what we need (Score:3, Insightful)

      by alvinrod ( 889928 )
      I actually disagree with you to a certain extent. I actually enjoy about 10 minutes of trailers for new movies or movies that will be out shortly. I've actually gone to a few movies that I thought I might enjoy that I might not have otherwise gone to if I hadn't seen the trailer.

      Additionally, this gives me an extra 10 minutes to get to the movie. Occasionally I will decide to go to a movie shortly before it starts. Sometimes, I won't always make it there exactly when the movie is going to start, but that

      • Additionally, this gives me an extra 10 minutes to get to the movie. Occasionally I will decide to go to a movie shortly before it starts. Sometimes, I won't always make it there exactly when the movie is going to start, but that extra 10 minutes ensures I won't miss anything.

        Bah. They should lock people like you out of theatres. Once the lights go down I shouldn't have to listen to your late-ass trying to find a seat.

        I used to live by a theatre that started the MOVIE at the posted time. Previews and adds

  • I think that this is going to be a fantastic feature for the DS and its games. I can not wait untill more Wi-Fi games it comes out for it. I know most geeks like the PSP but the DS has fantastic games for it (Kirby) and now the Nintendo is seeing online games as a good thing, I think that it will only make their games better.
    • I know most geeks like the PSP but the DS has fantastic games for it (Kirby)

      I think that this is kind of the statement I'm hearing all around from anyone who follows these two devices. I actually own a PSP myself but most of my gaming friends are fans of the DS. I think that the DS offers a really good dorm-room environment - it has a lot of excellent games that are fun to play with your friends off of a single hot-spot. On the other hand, I think the PSP offers the user a better individual experience

  • Here it is: (Score:2, Informative)

    by rohlfinator ( 888775 )
    The ad in question, [ign.com] for those who didn't bother to click on the IGN article.

    This campaign isn't too bad of an idea so far. The ad is a little obscure, but the launch of the WiFi network is still two or three months away. Something like this may pique the interest of fans, but it will be explained in more detail closer to the holidays. Besides, if the launch of Nintendo WiFi Connection is as successful as many people expect, news should spread rather quickly by word of mouth. I know a lot of people who ar

  • Nintendo's Campaign (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Kingrames ( 858416 )
    step 1: buy a DS. step 2: connect to the internet and do all sorts of cool stuff. step 3: get arrested for stealing someone's internet connection. ...talk about the worst time to introduce WiFi to a bunch of people who don't know what rights they don't have.

    • If the advertised SSID is "nintendo" (i.e. at a Nintendo official hotspot) or the like, or if the player has previously used this SSID for a game, put a green light. If the advertised SSID is "linksys" or some other well-known default brand name, put a red light. Otherwise, put a yellow light.

      "I'm color-blind, you insensitive clod!" Even color-blind people know from experience that stop comes first and go comes last in a traffic signal.

  • There seems to be some questioning here around Nintendo's Wi-Fi plan. It just happens that Nintendo Power's August issue discusses it, so a quick summary is probably called for. If you're wondering why I have Nintendo Power, hey cut me some slack, it was free:

    "The wait for Wi-Fi is nearly over. And if you're wondering if it has been worth the wait, consider this: In a few months, you'll enter a cafe in your home town, plop down with a cup of joe, fire up your DS and challenge a group of friends across town or strangers scattered across the globe to a friendly Mario Kart DS race."

    Sift through the marketspeak and, to me, it seems to indicate that Wi-Fi will begin rolling out by having hotspots in public venues, probably through arrangements between Nintendo and those venues. I think there's real potential in that kind of play, making it into a kind of quasi-arcade experience -- it drags portable gaming out of the living room and basement and out into public, which could turn out really cool. Think about it -- videogaming originated, as a mass-market phenomonon, in arcades, where you had spectators and a ready environment to talk games with people you never met. This could go a long way towards reviving gaming in a social context. (It could also crash and burn, but I'm so happy to see Nintendo trying something really risky for a change.)

    A little further along, the article talks about Wi-Fi on Revolution, seeming to imply that eventually it'll be available at home.

    And that's about it; one page on the tail end of three on the new DS Mario Kart.
    • Do you really think Nintendo is going to roll out a wireless network? Of course they aren't, they are going to be smart and just piggy back on all the existing hot spots so it will work just like wireless for any other device does currently.

      The infrastructure Nintendo will provide will be more geared towards the game servers themselves and there is also talk about them releasing a wireless router of sorts that people like my parents that have broadband but only one computer with no wireless router can just
      • Do you really think Nintendo is going to roll out a wireless network?

        Well since you ask...

        I figure (okay, guess) what Nintendo will probably do is offer some kind of proprietary access point hardware, first to those installations they partner with, then roll it out nationwide. It'll probably use a standard internet connection, but the wireless part will likely be encrypted by their hardware.

        This way, even though they don't make money off of access to their servers they still earn some cash, from access po
      • "Do you really think Nintendo is going to roll out a wireless network?"

        Well, they will in Japan. [slashdot.org] It's probably much less practical in the US, due to the smaller population density. The best implementation would be as you suggested, to use standard WiFi hotspots. But if, for some reason, the DS requires a proprietary protocol, the only solution would be for Nintendo to place their own hotspots or provide users with a USB dongle that lets them use "NiFi" over an existing connection.

        "...there is also tal
  • I cant wait for all the "online haters" who dissed xbox live and ps2 to no end for years, suddenly will be stand and say "Hey playing online is great!" ;) sigh.. well good for them.
    • No, I have to disagree. Playing online is not great. Xbox made it easier than the PS2 but neither in book qualify as great.

      When you want to play a game and then realize you need to download the latest massive patch, then spend time trying to find people to play against, then finally connect and realize most are using cheats/exploits or are just the usual immature pain-in-the-behinds.

      I tend to really get aggrivated playing any genre of game online. It basically all boils down to the same degenerative crap...
    • Online haters? Jesus christ get over your self. Please do us a favor and point out all of these online haters? Just because somebody is a Nintendo fan or sympathizes with Nintendo's decision not to support online play on the GameCube does NOT make them an online hater.

      Also, online gaming is not unique to the xbox OR the ps2 and you are not special because you have xbox live.

      I personally think Nintendo did the right thing as far as business decisions go.

      Sony's online gaming isn't exactly taking over the worl

    • Meh... (Score:2)

      by LKM ( 227954 )

      Online gaming is still crap. I'll make an exception for Mario Kart and Animal Crossing, though :-)

      Just kidding. Hopefully, this will get more people to play online. And hopefully, it won't just be an excuse for crappy AI in Mario Kart.

  • Portable gaming. I can see the Nintend DS in a unique position to become very popular through WiFi.
    Two things work in its favor: the stylus (Which allows for at least a few RTS style games. Imagine versing your friend in a game of Pikmin on the DS)and the mic (Hey, you could talk to people real time through the DS).
    If anything, this might spark a golden age of handheld innovation.

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