"Certainly we think the wireless play is going to be an exciting feature. There's a built in function called PictoChat, piece of software, that allows you draw freehand and write freehand and write freehand and you can chat wirelessly with your friends who have DSs. And we think that brings an element of game play to things like Madden Football and the Mario game and others that we think will really attract, we think, the young adults and older teens."
At a hundred fifty dollars, the handheld costs as much or more than Sony's Playstation2 or Microsoft's Xbox. Even so, Harrison says Nintendo expects demand to exceed supply during the holiday season. About compatibility with the existing library of Gameboy titles, he says…
"It plays all the Gameboy Advance games in the single player mode. You can't use the Gameboy Advance games for the multi-player wireless mode. But it brings you a library of Gameboy Advance games of 500 in addition to our seven launch titles and 10 to 12 by Christmas for Nintendo DS specifically. You'll be able to go back and play all of those great Gameboy Advance games as well." Will the DS games be more expensive? "No. They'll be priced right around the same price as the Gameboy games. Our titles are typically priced at 30 dollars."
Nintendo VP George Harrison. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.