January 27, 2012 04:31 am EDT

Nintendo officially announces Nintendo Network, promises personal accounts for Wii U

Nintendo's third quarter financial briefing just spilled the beans on the recently spied Nintendo Network, causing Nintendo fans everywhere to collectively sigh, "It's about time." Company head honcho Satoru Iwata says the network will offer "competitions and communication among users, as well as the sales of digital content," and in the case of the Wii U, will introduce personal user accounts. Iwata stopped just short of confirming that the Nintendo Network will end the company's policy of tying downloaded titles to Nintendo hardware, rather than individual users, but mentioned that it packed an infrastructure that supports not only add-on content, but fully downloadable retail games as well.

"This concept was built into the design of the Nintendo 3DS, and we already have the necessary infrastructure," Iwata said, "We will prepare the same infrastructure for the Wii U. However, we have not decided the concrete timing of when we will start it." Iwata pointed to Mario Kart 7's community building features and DLC offerings in the upcoming Theatrythm Final Fantasy as an early look at how the Nintendo Network is trying differentiate itself from the outfit's existing Nintendo Wi-Fi connection services. Hit the source link to read Iwata's briefing for yourself.

Nintendo officially announces Nintendo Network, promises personal accounts for Wii U originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Jan 2012 23:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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