Some random facts about how ebooks might be relevant for the Nintendo DS:

According to this press release:

“Darren Reid, author of the best selling Fantasy/Science Fictionfusion novel The Lord of Darkness and Shadow: The Chronicles of the Shadow Book One, today announces the release of a free ebooklibrary for Nintendo Wii, DS and Sony PS3. The free ebook librarycontains a collection of short stories, novels and novellas whichhave been optimized for use with the browsers in the Nintendo Wii and DS. “

An Francis Bonnin. It also seems that a french company is heading into that direction.

Notes from the person who described it:

“Actually reading the comic on my DS was a pleasent experience. With all of the display options, I had little-to-no trouble finding one that suited me. Everything worked as advertised, and I was enjoying an issue of The Books of Magic on my DS in no time. As expected, there’s a loss in “the experience,” due to the 256×192 resolution. Using anything that wasn’t the Dual Screen mode did not show enough of the page for me. Despite the limited screen space, text was legible, and the images appeared just as nicely as on the original pages.“

Further away, Toshiba released an interesting DS-like e-book, using the same affordance:

Why do I blog this? gathering some thoughts about the topic for a client project (not really a research project). As shown in this blogpost, some projects about using the DS as a way to convey textual content are starting off.

Some limits to have ebooks on the Nintendo DS:
- how to get the content: since Nintendo is less an less happy with homebrew developments/flash cards, what should be the best medium to convey texts? cartridges? download through the Internets/wifi?
- screen size and resolution are peculiar, what sort of content would be appropriate?
- the DS has incredible wifi capabilities (mostly in terms of practices and how people gather to play together), what would that mean for ebook applications? There might be great opportunities to design innovative applications based on ebook reading/educational applications.
- Same with annotation capabilities with the pen
- …

Beyond blowing at your DS to inflate bubbles in Nintendogs, other games make interesting uses of the microphones:

Spectrobes:

“dark energy creatures called the Krawl, and they’re now invading your system. The only way to defeat them is to excavate and reawaken ancient creatures that are buried deep underground, called Spectrobes. (…) minigame and involves making a certain level of noise, with the tone and pitch of that noise playing a part in deciding what kind of Spectrobe you will get once the process is complete.“

Dragon Tamer Sound Spirit:

“Dragon Tamer: Sound Spirit is basically your standard Pokemon monster battling game, but in order to get new dragons, you record sounds from different instruments and sources with the DS mic.

This is kind of like what Monster Rancher for the Playstation, where different random CDs would generate monsters with different statistics and abilitie“

Why do I blog this? interestingly enough, the mobile game industry, which has the perfect affordance and habits to control things with the voice (i.e. a cell phone…) has never released something similar (although I’ve seen some prototypes) on mass markets. Interesting HCI anyway… and on the NDS, as usual.

Also seen in the COEX Mall in Seoul, this “Nintendo DS Service Zone”:

Use power adapters (lock it while shopping), screen cleaners among other tools. This service, often provided for cell phone now extended to the NDS. Compared to Laurent’s experience of asking a screwdriver in a digital camera shop (in which employees said “no we cannot do that”), this sort of little booth/area to adjust your portable console is convenient and DYI.