Remember that thing called Nintendo Zone? It's an app on your 3DS that connects to thousands of Wi-Fi hotspots in your region — it doesn't work on home connections — and provides exclusive content such as videos to watch. It's there to encourage us to take our portable system on the road and fire it up in restaurants, fast-food spots and coffee shops, among other locations.
It's a nice option, though we'd wager some don't use it or have difficulty finding specific Wi-Fi spots supported by the service. Nintendo UK has gone to fresh effort to expand access to the service by signing up to a deal with O2, one of the largest mobile providers in the region that also has a rapidly expanding Wi-Fi network. Some of these new online areas are live right now, while the full range of O2's 7000 hotspots will enable further access to Nintendo Zone in the coming weeks.
As is always the case, the access and Nintendo Zone are completely free, and all you need to do is open up your 3DS in a spot and have your Wi-Fi settings on; it should automatically install the app — if you haven't used it already — and you're good to go. Typically the offerings will consist of video, with various trailers on the way (though one of the listed movie's already been out for a while):
Upcoming content available to download from Nintendo Video includes free 3D trailers for blockbusters such as Iron Man 3, Monsters University and Epic as well as 3D animations featuring everybody’s favorite pink morphing-maestro Kirby and extreme sports action from Red Bull.
You need to have updated your 3DS to the latest system update for the service to work. So, have you used Nintendo Zone on any of the existing free Wi-Fi spots, and will this O2 deal encourage you to try this more?
Comments 15
I used Nintendo Zone to download the cards for the Mario and Sonic app for the Olympics. Only started half way through though so still missing 4 that I doubt I'll ever get Can you use these hotspots to download games from eshop etc? Or is it just certain content provided and that's it?
I wonder if they also made a deal for the rest of Europe, since O2 is one of the largest providers in other countries as well.
came across it a couple of times but i never actually used it!
I've used it once or twice (since the Nintendo Zone app installed itself one day) and I have to say, it wasn't worth the effort of finding a compatable wi-fi zone. It was only full of links to download (at the time) the very limited eShop titles within a very slow browser page that wouldn't load any of the videos.
I don't think theres a lot of people in the UK who take there 3ds on the road with them, ive been in manchester city centre at the weekend on quite a few occasions and i always take my sons 3ds with me to see how many streetpass hits i can get him and guess how many i usually get? most of the time none exept for on a few occasions when ive had the odd 1 or 2 but thats pretty rare
@drunkenmaster76 Its the same here. I stop taking my 3ds with me to town because of the increase of pocket crime.
@Bluezealand At the moment the only details I can find specify the UK, but will update the article if anything else pops up.
In Italy it's better that i've just gotten my wi-fi Netgear. Nintendo would release the next-gen portable console before we get a good connection and free wi-fi pin points.
I can understand Nintendo making this not work on your home Wi-Fi b/c they want to encourage people to go out and about, but even going out and about there are too few of these for them to even bother keeping the service active in the US. I have to go to McDonalds or Starbucks. And 7,000 hotspots may sound like a lot but my cable company alone advertises 75,000.
Well this is Nintendo, they think having a handful of Best Buys offer E3 demos for 2 days 4 hours each day is a big deal meanwhile you can't play any demos on any of their other store kiosks and the system has now been out over 6 months.
Guess it's good news if I ever return to the UK though.
Bit strange timing with O2 just losing all the BT Openzone hotspots. There were 5 million of those compared to 8000 O2 ones!
@Sakura Yep, the nintendo zone hotspots also give you an internet connection, so anything you could do on those three blue bars at home, you can do in the Nintendo Zone!
@PvtOttobot Thanks! I have internet at home so I've never tried using Nintendo Zone for eshop, online multiplayer etc. Good to know! Means you don't need a connection at home to use internet functionality on 3DS. It's quite cool that Nintendo offers that.
I don't get the point of Nintendo Zone. It's just a tiny web page that you can't view from home. Whyyyyyyy...?
@drunkenmaster76 Theres a few people around in Cardiff who take theirs out. Your best bet is taking it into game shops though, I usually get a pass or two in there...
This installed itself when I went through an airport, but there was nothing available when it launched. I'll try it again next week when I'm passing through the airport again.
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