Metroid Prime: Hunters to have Voice Chat; DS Download Stations

[fischju]

From IGN:
Nintendo today revealed that Metroid Prime Hunters, the Wi-Fi enabled Nintendo DS first-person shooter hitting the system on March 20th, will be the first game in the Nintendo DS library to support voice chatting over the internet.

Players will be able to chat with players via the built-in microphone on the Nintendo DS before and after a match-up. Players can converse with anyone on their friend's list established through Friend Codes by clicking on the Chat icon in the game's lobby system.

http://ds.ign.com/articles/687/687241p1.html

*********DSDUDE EDIT*********

Also of note, some more things Nintendo announced today:

Nintendo Unveils Features for DS Handheld

Nintendo Co. announced new wireless features for its DS portable video game player Thursday, including a free service that will let consumers beam game demos and other content directly to the device.

Beginning in late March, the company plans to deploy electronic kiosks at thousands of U.S. retailers including Best Buy Co. Inc. and GameStop Corp.

Owners of the dual-screen DS who go near the kiosks will automatically receive a notice on their devices offering game demos, movie trailers and other content for temporary download. The information will be erased from the DS once it's turned off.

The service uses the DS's local-area wireless networking capabilities, which until now had been used just to facilitate head-to-head play by gamers near each other.

Nintendo also said it was adding voice chat to the sci-fi action game "Metroid Prime: Hunters," available March 20. Players who join up for multiplayer battles over Nintendo's wireless Internet service will be able to talk to each other through the system's built-in microphone before and after games, but not during, said Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America Inc.'s executive vice president of sales and marketing.

At least one game for rival Sony Corp.'s PlayStation Portable offers a more robust feature. Teammates in "SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo" can talk to each other wirelessly during battles.

Fils-Aime added that a slimmed down, all-white Nintendo DS Lite would go on sale in Japan next month.

Handheld video games and hardware helped buoy the industry to record sales of $10.5 billion in 2005, according to the NPD Group research firm.

Nintendo said it has sold about 4 million DS systems in North America since it was launched in late 2004. Another 4 million PlayStation Portables have been sold in North America since the unit went on sale last March, according to Sony.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060209/...es_nintendo_ds

DS download stations coming Stateside

Some countries get all the neat stuff. On their way to work or wherever else they may be headed, gamers in Japan can approach special hot spots, in train stations, for example, and download demos, trailers, and other files to their DS. Unfortunately for North American gamers, such amenities have so far been limited to Japan.

Envious American DS owners were given some reprieve today. At the DICE Summit taking place in Las Vegas, Nintendo announced that DS download stations would be coming to the US "in a matter of weeks."

The company has commitments with retailers EB Games, GameStop, and Game Crazy to host download stations, and negotiations are under way with megaretailers Target and Wal-Mart. Nintendo envisions DS download stations at thousands of retail locations across the country.

[UPDATE] The first download stations will include demos of Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day, Mario Kart DS, True Swing Golf, Pokemon Trozei, Meteos, and Tetris DS. A video of Metroid Prime: Hunters will also be available for download, with new content is expected to be added every quarter.

Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America executive vice president of sales and marketing, said, "We plan on expanding the market for interactive entertainment...for those who already buy our games and for those who don't buy our games."

The content will stay on the DS as long as it's powered on. Once the user shuts off the machine, the downloaded material will be lost.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6143986.html

Also of note, some more things Nintendo announced today:

Nintendo Unveils Features for DS Handheld

Nintendo Co. announced new wireless features for its DS portable video game player Thursday, including a free service that will let consumers beam game demos and other content directly to the device.

Beginning in late March, the company plans to deploy electronic kiosks at thousands of U.S. retailers including Best Buy Co. Inc. and GameStop Corp.

Owners of the dual-screen DS who go near the kiosks will automatically receive a notice on their devices offering game demos, movie trailers and other content for temporary download. The information will be erased from the DS once it's turned off.

The service uses the DS's local-area wireless networking capabilities, which until now had been used just to facilitate head-to-head play by gamers near each other.

Nintendo also said it was adding voice chat to the sci-fi action game "Metroid Prime: Hunters," available March 20. Players who join up for multiplayer battles over Nintendo's wireless Internet service will be able to talk to each other through the system's built-in microphone before and after games, but not during, said Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America Inc.'s executive vice president of sales and marketing.

At least one game for rival Sony Corp.'s PlayStation Portable offers a more robust feature. Teammates in "SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo" can talk to each other wirelessly during battles.

Fils-Aime added that a slimmed down, all-white Nintendo DS Lite would go on sale in Japan next month.

Handheld video games and hardware helped buoy the industry to record sales of $10.5 billion in 2005, according to the NPD Group research firm.

Nintendo said it has sold about 4 million DS systems in North America since it was launched in late 2004. Another 4 million PlayStation Portables have been sold in North America since the unit went on sale last March, according to Sony.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060209/...es_nintendo_ds

[Lkr]

the voice chat is gonna blow BAD! only able to talk before or after a game? thats bs. its going to be teh ****zer. i mean honestly. the whole point of voice chat is for IN GAME

[Sepharite]

I guess the DS doesn't have enough RAM mem to do both tasks at the same time... but meh, better than nothing. And it will be pretty hilarious with people speaking in other languages... heh, Sie erhielten pwned, Weibchen!!!!!

And there is Team Speak so...

[Mario Famous]

Yeah, the DS only has about 2mb worth of RAM space...that's enough for a non-rpg SNES game..isn't that something?

[jjgamepro17]

Sweet, voice chat so when finish owning someone online you can talk some trash

[Frisky_Biscuits]

the voice downside might also be an upsode cause as most of u know playin on the internet, people can get VERY annoying when they are talkng and ur trying to play

[Pilot_51]

Originally Posted by mario_famous

Yeah, the DS only has about 2mb worth of RAM space...that's enough for a non-rpg SNES game..isn't that something?

Last I knew it was 4MB. The limiting factor seems to be the WiFi speed and processing power, 802.11b is probably too slow for all the information during a match as well as voice chat, and the CPU can't handle much if any audio compression (which is probably what PSP uses) because it's already full with gameplay data. If it's not enough and you're at your PC, there's always Teamspeak or if you dare use the alternative text chat (pretty much useless since you'd mostly only use it between matches when you'd have the DS voice chat anyway).
Still, it's a huge jump from MKDS and bound to be the best multiplayer game of 2006. Even without voice chat I think it would be the best. I hope there's a way to communicate with non-friends, like maybe a filtered text chat.

[nmaster64]

Can we fix this post so it's not screwing up the home page?

Fixed.