April 13th, 2009
Baseball, garlic fries, and Nintendo DSi star at Safeco Field
I am a major hometown sports fan and was pleased to see Ken Griffey, Jr. come back to the Mariners for a final season or two. Our home opener is tomorrow and there will be something else new this year for Mariner fans. Nintendo of America is the majority owner of the M’s baseball team and for a couple of years they have had the cool Nintendo Fan Network in place that provided DS owners the ability to watch highlight videos, check out stats, and more over the free wireless network. According to The Seattle Times Nintendo is letting the first 150 people who request to borrow a DSi at each game use it while they are at the stadium to access the upgraded Nintendo Fan Network. I just recently purchased and posted my thoughts on my own black DSi and now it looks like I need to bring it to the game with me along with my pack of red licorice and glove.
You will be able to order food and drinks to be delivered to your seat right from you DSi so you can avoid those long lines and you won’t have to miss any baseball action. You will be able to view live video feeds of the game, send messages across the network, and compete against other DS users in Mariner’s trivia. Stats will be provided by Major League Baseball so you can check out what is going on around the league. You will even be able to use your DSi to check highway traffic reports before departing the ballpark.
Some of the newest features with the upgraded network include ESPN news and puzzle game and closed-captioned public announcements and audio radio broadcasts. My grandfather attended hundreds of Mariner’s games and also brought along a radio to listen to the audio broadcast in the stands and keep stats of the game so the audio broadcasts seem like a natural fit.
After the free introductory offer ends in June, you will be able to rent a DS for the game for a fee. Last year it was $10 per game to rent a device, but should be lower this year.
It is pretty cool to see the DSi being used for multimedia functionality like this and I can’t wait to go to the ballpark and try it out.
Matthew Miller is an avid mobile device enthusiast who works during the day as a professional naval architect in Seattle. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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