Iwata: Wi-Fi Access for all – BT Deal Looms

Yes, the DS should work on your existing wireless network, as long as it is B or G; the only question is the exact way to authenticate it, if you have security enabled.

True.

Do we need to open up certain ports for instance? My MSN voice conferencing doesn't work at all with my router unless i open up the right ports. Which i still haven't done because it's a hassle, i'm too lazy, it's too technical and i don't REALLY need it.

Hope they give a clear set of instructions.

messenging on wi-fi? Now this is really too much. *faints*

whats voip calls?
and what does san mean in japanese.eg Iwata san.

The problem here is that WiFi is really not the technology for this. I mean, yeah, it's great if you're sat in Starbucks (and at any one time, approximately 17.5% of the world's population is), but if you're camping in the Yorkshire Dales (if they still allow that sort of thing) or mincing through the Scottish Glens, or even if you're over 50yrd from an access point, you're shagged.

WiMax will be the technology to make handheld wireless access a thing of great beauty and earthshattering potential.

It'll also make BT, and all those companies who spent Millions (why spend Billions when you could spend Billions) on a 3G license weep into their beer. And I bet they drink Carling.

Voice over IP. So making (free or very very cheap) calls over the Internet, rather than the traditional circuit switched public telephone networks.


It's an honorific title.

Roughly, it means Mr. (also Mrs and Ms - it is not gender specific).

San is a polite term used for unfamiliar peers and superiors. A more friendly, informal equivalent is -kun, used for friends and colleagues. And -chan by children and among close friends.

You might want to Google for "Uchi-soto" if you are interested in the concept of Japanese ettiquette.

The most polite honorific is -sama, but this is reserved for people of very rank.

Correctly, SPOnG should maybe refer to Iwata-sama.

what an intellegent doctor you are.
cheers.

Sounds good so far. With all the news from TGS still ringing in my ears, I had almost forgotten there's more to my DS than just what we are used to on a hand held.

Mario Kart and the USB thingy couldn't come any sooner, and I'm still enjoying so much on my DS already.

Only that WiMax energy consumption in tests have been so startlingly high that it is currently impractical to put it in a Laptop, let alone a portable gaming device.
Plus it's going to be targeted mainly at business costumers, at least at first, for allowing many poeple who have been sofar unable to get broadband connection a chance to experience the joy of high speed internet.

And, when, or if we do see consumer orientated WiMax for portable systems, it will probably be a subscribtion based System, that only pays off for business people.

What's wrong with normal WiFi? It's cheap, simple and decentralised.
So instead of relying on 50 km Antennas, which you'd have to pay for, why not simply hook up a WiFi router to your homeline, and rely on the already numerous possibilities to use WiFi on the go?

I mean, if someone's got access in their home, at work, on public transport, and any cafe they choose to sit down at, not to mention the recent efforts of municipal councils to offer free WiFi in active town centres, what more do they need?

Or do you spend so much time playing in abandoned industrial areas and the yorkshire dales that you need this technology so much?

The only way I might be able to imagine widespread use for WiMax is as a backbone system for cars and trains, that then gives "old" WiFi access to it's passengers, although this is already possible with UMTS.

Oh yeah, and WiMax isn't even out yet.

Yes, but they will overcome that. Mannufacturers are prediicting that they will have WiMax hanndheld ready for market during 2006... and I'll bet that they'll be ready for PSP2, GameCube Pocket etc etc.


But it won't stay that way. I don't believe it will, and I am sure that in your heart of hearts, you know it won't too. It's only 10 years ago that mobile phones were for business users only.


That may have been the intention, but with BT's change of heart, and them deciding to broadband-enable EVERY exchange, that intention has been made redundant.


Of course it will be subscription based. But then so is your home broadband connection, so is your mobile phone, so is Sky TV.


1. Blanket coverage required tens of thousands of access points.
2. The systems do not exist to co-ordinate access points to allow easy roaming.
3. Systems that do enable roaming will actually not be decentralised, but will be controlled by corporations like BT, Vodafone etc etc.
4. Coverage outside metropolitan areas will be bad.


I'm kind of assuming that everyone who really wants has done that by now. But that doesn't help when you are in a strange town. You then will either have to go to Starbucks, or subscribe to a BT, O2 etc system. You'll have to subscribe to their system and you'll be limited by their "network coverage".


Once the big turn-on happens, and everyone is trying to use those access points, they will not stay free. It's the drug pusher business model, free until they are hooked, and theh charge for it. And quite simply, the cost of operating tend of thousands thousands of access points is greater than the cost of operating hundreds.


That is an inane comment, and slightly racist. The point I was making, albeit slightly prosaically is that WiMax promises more manageable way to acheive blanket wireless access.


That is a very feasible scenario.


Expensively, and with limited bandwidth - yes.


If you keep your eye on today, it's tomorrow before you realise that you've fallen behind.

dont know how to quote.but u will know what im talking about.Drdee how was that guy being racist? he was merly using a geographical example to back up his arguement.two things i hate in life is racism and sectarianism,and being a catholic and a quater nigerian(dad half) living in belfast n.ireland i see a lot of that s**t.if thats what you consider racism,ur lucky...

It's racist in the same way as saying to an American "or do you spend so much time shagging your cousin in some backwater hole"... It's tarring people with the "I saw it on TV, it is truth" kinda thing.

or like asking an Englishman:

Q-"Are you straight?"
A-"'Fraid so, my parents could never have afforded Public school."

Unfair.
HM Prisons offer the British proletariat an equal opportunity entry to the world of sodomy.

And with so many white collor scrotes getting their collars felt these days, you even get chance to bum a public schoolboy.

Yay, truly this is the land of equal opportunity.

Whilst alot of progress has been made, the basic princibles are that the more range you want, the more power you need.
There are however other promising technologies in development, notably xMax.
WiMax applications have yet to be released, and many predict it's at least 3-5 years before it has widespread usage, i.e. PDAs and mobile phones.


So you're saying the DS online service is crap because we'll have something better in ten years?



I don't quite know what you mean so I'll try to ignore this


I have no intention of taking out so many subscribtions that all my money goes into paying them.
Thats the main reason why Nintendo has been so cautious with online sofar.

If I've got a wireless Internet connection at home, at work, and any other place I frequently visit, why should I pay for the odd occaison when I might be somewhere else?



This is more speculation. Most free WiFi options don't work on any business model (how can they?), so they'll be no reason for slapping prices on them.


I still don't get why this is racist. You wanted the example with the dales.


So what exactly were you hoping from WiMax?
You don't seriously think BT is going to give you the Maximum 75Mbps do you? And what were you hoping price-wise?

The whole point I want to make is that instead of shunning existing technologies because they have a few disadvantages, we should look at the picture as a whole.
Why has WiFi been so successful?
Because it's cheap to make, simple, and in many cases, free. And it is easily implemented into your existing home Internet system.

I'm not saying WiMax won't be successfull, but WiFi works, why shun it?

No one would (or really could) argue with that. And I tend to agree that the 2006 claims for handheld WiMax devices is optimistic, but I think the five year one to which you refer will prove to be pessimistic.


No, I'm not saying that. You are willfully misinterpretting me. I'm saying that it will have very serious limitations in terms of coverage, and that if BT is involved it won't be truly or permanently free.


You stated that WiMax's real intended purpose was to enable people who couldn't get DSL to get broadband. This is to some extent redundant now that BT has made such big steps, and given undertakings in terms of DSL penetration.


OK. SO which have you NOT got? DSL, A mobile phone, or Sky?


I'm not suggesting that you should. But I'm suggesting that the very many people who do not live such ordered and regular lives might wish to.

As a kid, the most tedious thing was the journey to the many castles, hills, battlefield and other "places of interet" I was dragged to. If I'd been able to play network games on the way, I might have been marginally more tolerant of the culture I had to endure on arrival. I assume that things have not changed that much.


They don't work on any business model becaus ehtey don't "work" in any real sense. They are a cottage industry of enthusiasts, dealing with a light load. When everyone carries a WiFi capable portable device, and wants to route all their voice traffic over IP, and have video... that cottage industry will be brought to its knees. It will need to find commercial ways of sustaining itself. There is no free lunch.


The Dales are a fact of life. The idea that Yorkshire is full of industrial decay is a southern-centric myth.


I think WiMax will give an opportunity for the same kind of democratisation WiFi enables, but on a slightly more manageable scale. So not ever building with its own access point, but every community. The market will determine the pricde, but it is bound tro fall. But because no one has paid £20billion in licences, and because there can be more competition I expect it to quickly become more competitively priced than UMTS.


I am not proposing that we "shun" WiFi... it is and will remain a phenomenally important technology. But it is not the long term solution to portable access beyond the metropolitan areas.


I would contest that it has not - that is not interms of offering open, wide are roaming access. It has been phenomenally successful in offering local, single cell wireless, and it is this purpose to which it is best suited.

The basis for Wi-Fi on the DS is squarely on Japan. That's what comes first. If it works Japan perfectly, it doesnt matter if it works at 50% efficiency elsewhere. Japan is where Nintendo wants and needs to be number 1 in the handheld market.
Personally one could say that wi-fi will cater to the majority of gamers (eventually) since most gamers (according to metropolitan size) will buy a DS unit. This is the most accessible "free" route on current technology.

You know the war is over when the DS and the Gameboy Micro both outsell the PSP individually, even when the PSP has released its special white edition. The wireless is just the nail in the coffin for the PSP, it will linger for a year or two more so developers can tie up and finish off their current declared projects with the system.

Innovation is the new awesome, free wifi is part of that innovation. Its going to be interesting to see how the Revolution fares against the conventional systems. If its anything like the PSP vs the DS, Nintendo is going to regain a lot of ground. Against everybody's earliest expectations.

Okay folks mind out of the gutter for a while.

While the BT deal would be great for DS owners, what does it mean for those of us who have a NTL, Telewest connections?

If I have to wait after BT I'll be a little pisssed but there's plenty to play on DS in the mean time anyways. Online Mario Kart would be cool for xmas, though.