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DSvision Add-On to Offer Anime, Manga on Nintendo DS

The Japanese company am3, which is best known for selling anime movies on data cards for the Nintendo Gameboy Advance and DS portable game consoles, has announced a new system for downloading anime, manga, and other content onto the Nintendo DS in Japan. When it launches in March of 2008, the DSvision service will allow users to download content onto a memory card with a personal computer, and then watch or read that content on the Nintendo DS. (The company's previous Advance DS Movie system only sold data cards with movies already pre-loaded onto them.) There have been third-party systems that attach memory cards or even hard drives to the Nintendo DS, but DSvision is the first to get Nintendo's seal of approval. It will also be the first that will be tied to an online store.

The am3 company advertises that the DSvision's 2GB microSD memory card can store up to 4,000 text books, 200 comics, or 16 movies. The starter kit with a 512MB microSD card, a microSD card adaptor for the Nintendo DS, and a USB card reader/writer will sell for 3,980 yen (about US$36.23) in January. The am3 company and its partner Dai Nippon are advertising that 300 titles will be available at launch, with 10,000 planned by 2010. The companies are projecting that the DS's current 20 million Japanese users will spend 200 million yen (US$200,000) on its service in 2008 and 1 billion yen (US$900,000) in 2010.