Iwata expresses interest in Whispernet-like service on DS

If you’re like me, you may have never heard of Kindle before, and if you’re also like me, you probably have no idea what the Kindle ebook reader is either. Nintendo President Satoru Iwata does, however, and has expressed interest in putting a similar service on the DSi or DSi XL.

“I’m interested because it’s a new business model in which the user doesn’t bear the communications cost.”-Nintendo President Satoru Iwata,

Iwata also said, however, that the service doesn’t fit well with Nintendo as of now. If we see it on DSi at all, it’ll probably be a lot cheaper than it is on many other platforms!

“Only people who can pay thousands of yen a month [in mobile phone subscriptions] can be iPhone customers. That doesn’t fit Nintendo customers because we make amusement products,”

What Kindle/WhisperNet does is allows users to access a 3G internet connection anywhere, with no extra attachments. The service would always be turned on, but would cost users a periodic fee to use. I’m not sure if this would really appeal to me as a gamer, but for those in the more casual crowd, this may give the DSi a slight advantage over the iPhone. What do you guys think? Would you like to see something like this on DS?

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