Nintendo Seeks Patent to Use DS for Shopping Lists in Wireless Shopping Network

Nintendo's plans for the DS were grand. They didn't just want another mobile video game console, where only gamers were attracted to it. They wanted their device, and all of the subsequent hardware releases since then, to be carried around everywhere, no matter what the person was doing. This new patent that Nintendo is aiming for would help that case, by allowing users to build a shopping list that would connect to a wireless shopping network, and ultimately bring a new and interactive way for shoppers to find their goods.

The patent itself outlines Nintendo's plans to use the Nintendo DS as a way to create a shopping list, which would connect to a wireless shopping program in the store. The end result would be the network relaying information to the DS, from product information to the actual location within that particular store of something you're searching for. Nintendo wants you to create your list within the store, using some kind of program to do so, and then the store would tell you where to find it, among other need-to-know pieces of information.

Here's the description of the patent:

"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."

By allowing owners of the DS to do more things than just play video games, it gives the owners more of a reason to take the DS with them. And, while the idea has been done before in other devices, including iOS and Android-based handsets, it looks like Nintendo wants the experience to grow ten-fold, with the inclusion of the wireless shopping network. The big hurdle will be the way they implement the system, not only on the DS itself, but as well as in the particular supermarkets, and other stores, across the globe.

[via iSmashPhone]