American DS gamers must be pretty pleased with the latest news from Nintendo this week, who have just announced an expansive deal with the McDonalds fast-food chain, which will see DS wireless hot-spots launching in more than 7,000 restaurants across the United States. The new WiFi service will be free for DS players, and owing to the spread of McDonald's outlets this new arrangement looks set to offer excellent coverage of the entire nation. Wayport are the American firm behind McDonalds existing wireless net service, which carries a usage fee for laptop users, Ninty have however picked up the bill for DS gamers, it would seem.

"This agreement with Wayport will bring countless people together to play games in a single, simultaneous wireless community," commented the Big N's vocal marketing boss Reggie Fils-Aime. "Beginning with free access at participating McDonald's, we have removed one of the major barriers that have kept people from going online to play games."

The Nintendo WiFi connection launches stateside on November 14th, and on the 25th across the pond. The connection will not only be used by the DS, but also by the new Revolution console, we're told. The successor to the GameCube is due out in 2006.

In news related to the new WiFi connection it has been revealed this week that the new service uses the 'WEP' protocol. WPA is regarded as the standard usually, and experts have called into question the security of the network operating under this standard. That said, gamers using the USB WiFi adapter at home need not worry a jot anyway. We'll keep you posted.

By Luke Guttridge

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  1. david128 Unregistered 3 years ago

    This is a pretty kool idea, I wonder if they'll do the same thing in Mcdonalds in UK, although I'd rather they did it in Burger King coz its a million times better than Dcdonalds XD