Nintendo DS Social Infrastructure Plans Revealed News

Following recent comments from Nintendo President Satoru Iwata and Senior Managing Director Shigeru Miyamoto, which proclaimed 2008 as "the year to challenge itself on the uses of the Nintendo DS", it had seemed that PDA functionality was on the cards for the popular portable.

Nested deep within a translated Q&A session taken from the hardware giant's April-December 2007 financial briefing however, lurked an intriguing question, with an answer that provided a further potential glimpse of what Nintendo's up to.

Responding to a question about DS units serving as tour-guides inside a theme park, Nintendo's response elicited a far grander vision for the handheld.

"More than 21 million units of "Nintendo DS" are played in Japan alone. Globally, the number exceeds 64 million. It is really something that a single-architecture product like "Nintendo DS" is now being used by so many people. We think it is now becoming possible that "Nintendo DS" may be used as a sort of social infrastructure. A number of companies are making a variety of proposals to Nintendo. We are reviewing its potential for ourselves too."

Which companies are Nintendo talking to? What's next in their plans for global domination the Nintendo way?? Can we play with a DS next time we visit Alton Towers??? We'll have to wait and see what the Red Social Revolution brings.