Nintendo unveils wireless gaming plans

SAN FRANCISCO - Nintendo sketched out its vision of wireless gaming this week, promising an end to "the old model of a person tethered to a game control tethered to a device tethered to a TV."

The successor to the company's Game Cube home console, code-named Revolution, will let users play with other people through high-speed wireless Internet connections, company officials said.

Revolution, which will use the WiFi standard, "will renew and improve the world of games," Nintendo president Satoru Iwata told a game developers' meeting in San Francisco on Thursday.

Iwata also said users of Nintendo's DS portable game device, launched last year, will be able to use WiFi for free by the end of 2005.

Both the DS and the Revolution are about changing the way we interact with games, said Reggie Fils-Aime, executive vice president of sales and marketing for Nintendo.

"The old model of a person tethered to a game control tethered to a device tethered to a TV is over," he told MSNBC.com.

"[Revolution] will be more inviting for both hardcore and casual gaming; it will be intuitive," said Fils-Aime.

Fils-Aime said the new console was not currently on the timetable for 2005, but would "certainly" be so for 2006.

Nintendo and its rivals Sony and Microsoft are all expected to give further details of their new platforms at the annual E3 industry trade show in May in Los Angeles.

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