Future DS downloads available via the Wii

The idea of a portable Virtual Console may not be far off. In a recent story by the New York Times, Nintendo of America’s president Reggie Fils-Amie confirmed plans to make DS games and demos available through the Wii. Later in the story Fils-Amie suggests that the DS will be expanded to meet other daily needs, citing the use of the handheld during baseball games at Safeco Field in Seattle, Washington and the use of the system to provide information in Japanese museums.

This recent information comes on the heels of the announcement of Nintendo’s DS Vision in Japan. The DS Vision is a DS cartridge with removable flash memory that can download various kinds of media that can then be viewed on the DS. Perhaps this latest announcement from Fils-Amie could foreshadow an American DS Vision release.

Already several DS games have made use of the download feature to add onto existing games. Pokemon Diamond/Pearl has made use of the function to download event pokemon onto the game cartridge. Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales had several special cards which could only be acquired through downloads at DS stations. Also the Japanese version of Professor Layton had new puzzles available to download each week over the Nintendo WiFi Connection.

If Nintendo were truly smart, they would open up the video game equivalent of iTunes for the DS. Using the Wii or a computer, people could then purchase and download classic games or new releases and transfer them to a microSD card, which could then be loaded into the DS Vision and played on the system. Of course that’s just my crazy idea of a potentially perfect situation. Imagine how cool it would be to have multiple great games on one cartridge, or be able to purchase a game directly from Nintendo on the day it is launched.

Read [NY Times] Via [GameDaily]