November 1^st, 2005 (12:32am) - Nintendo of Europe’s Jim Merrick sat down with the Spanish online magazine Meristation and has revealed a good amount of new information regarding Mario Kart DS, the Nintendo WiFi Connection, and the Nintendo Revolution next-generation game console. (Please note that the following is a summarization and translation of what was featured in the original article -- thus it is possible that some of the information have been interpreted falsely.)

In regards to Mario Kart DS, Merrick revealed that users will indeed be able to chat with friends. However, in order to protect younger players, users will only able to chat with players on their friends lists. Users will be able to do this by giving friends their MAC code, which every DS unit has.

Much like Nintendo’s efforts in Japan, the United States, and Canada, Merrick has confirmed that Nintendo will be setting up over twenty-five thousand hotspots across Europe for DS owners to enter multiplayer matches using the Nintendo WiFi Connection completely free of cost. And, for DS owners wishing to take their handhelds online at home, Merrick confirmed that the USB Wi-Fi adapter will be available on November 25th at 39.95 € and in actual retail shops, instead of forcing consumers to purchase the dongle online (like in the U.S.). As expected, this adapter will also be compatible with the Revolution when it launches in 2006.

Earlier this month, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata revealed that the Nintendo Revolution will have a near simultaneous launch worldwide and Merrick has re-confirmed this statement and given us a better idea about the launch situation, stating that Nintendo will launch the console in the same quarter in every region.

Although it has not been explained thoroughly at the moment, Merrick has also revealed, that similarly to the Nintendo DS, the Revolution will allow multiplayer gaming with only one copy of the game required. While this type of multiplayer gaming has existed for ages, it is believed that Merrick meant that LAN multiplayer will be possible with only one copy of the game and multiple Revolution consoles.

In what is sure to please many hardcore gamers, according to Merrick, through the virtual console download service, Revolution owners will be able to download classic games from any regional server. So, if you’ve always wanted to get your hands on the cult favorite Sin and Punishment for the Nintendo 64, you may now do so by downloading the game from the Japanese server and it will be compatible with your NTSC or PAL Revolution game console. Not only this, but Merrick has also stated that it is possible that many Nintendo 64 games will run with a better framerate on the Revolution.

There are also a number of things being discussed at Nintendo for this WiFi Connection service for the Revolution, which include the possibility of having temporary game rentals before a purchase, demo downloads and being able to view trailers of upcoming games.

As for actual games in development for Nintendo Revolution, we won’t see any of them in 2005, but Merrick is promising that the visual fidelity of Revolution games won’t be much different than the competing next-generation consoles. The differences will supposedly not be significantly different. With this said, third parties are beginning to receive fully functional development kits for the console. However, it is still believed that these development kits are running on a slightly more powerful SDK of the GameCube hardware and not the actual Revolution chipset.