Nintendo Hoping to Create In-Store Wireless Shopping Network

We’ve heard of similar technologies with Apple, in which you could use your iOS device to help simplify the process of shopping.

The patent that Nintendo seeks here would allow you to use your Nintendo DS to create a shopping list through a wireless shopping program in the store. The network would allow for information on products to be stored so that the user can read up on certain products or know where they are located in the store.

Nintendo somewhat played with this idea in their Personal Trainer: Cooking game, but that was limited to a shopping list. This would allow the user to create their shopping list in store and have a store layout that would allow them to find the items they need much more easily.

Read the description below:

An example system includes a display, a communication circuit, a memory storing a shopping program, and a processor in communication with the display, the communication circuit and the memory. The processor is configured to execute the shopping program to access a product database including product information, to process inputs supplied to the system to generate a shopping list comprising one or more products from the product database and to provide guidance information on the display relating to product location in a store of the products on the shopping list.

Seems like another way to create a reason for users to carry their DS around no matter where they go, which was part of the handheld’s original goal. Giving users a reason to carry it around, gives them a reason to play games while out and about, thus giving users a reason to buy software.