Riding the rails with the DS

To test out Wi-Fi for himself, Chris wandered through the UK's capitol in a desperate attempt to meet new DS owners. This is the account of his nomadic search.

I got off the bus and entered the train station. There was no point staying around here, I thought. London was the only place where I stood any chance of succeeding in my goal.

I got on the southbound train and took out my battered Nintendo DS from my bag. I had imported it less a month ago after a friend managed to get one through the Nintendo club. Since then, it had taken enough knocks, bumps and frantic scribbles to ensure it looked well used. Not like the ones I hoped to find today, at least.

I switched it on and checked the chat-rooms. Virgin had opened at midnight, but at most outlets, the DS had been on sale for less than an hour. So it wasn't surprising to find them as empty as they'd been for the past month. Like a World of Warcraft beta tester on release day, I waited anxiously for the arrival of others.

I knew however, that unlike WoW, merely waiting wouldn't be enough to catch a glimpse of another DS user. This was a safari expedition and I was David Bellamy, heading into the urban jungle to find my subject. As a one-time Nintendo fan, I desperately wanted today to become a revolution in videogame culture � that suddenly hundreds of people who didn't know each other would chat, converse and play games freely. I envisioned wherever I was, be it on bus, plane or tube, anonymous individuals would beam Mario 64 DS to me for the duration of the game we would be united. I knew that this, taken literally, was not possible, but wanted to at least see if any resemblance to this dream was true.

So far, it wasn't. The train carriage contained no more than seven people, but not one of them looked in on my pictochat room. Before leaving my home, I had made a quick list of what a subject needed to do to make contact. They had to have bought a DS, then decided not to go home and play on it, but instead hang out in London with their DS turned on, yet leave it in Pictochat. To find this would be quite a task.

Convinced that my subject was not on the train, I popped in Mario and proceeded to play it all the way to St. Pancras. Unaware of odorous distractions, I only became aware of our arrival when the train came to a halt. I got off and joined the passengers as they walked to Kings Cross, noticing a few student types among our number. Like me, they had headphones in their ears, now listening to music as they walked. I hazarded a guess that like me, they could have headphones in their ears during the train journey, playing Mario as they waited. I'd never know, because there is no way to contact someone in single player games, even if they were multiplayer enabled. If only Nintendo had put a flag into the system that I could have ticked if I wanted to be available for multiplayer. That they didn't meant I continued my journey.

I crossed into Kings Cross and sat down on a bench beside the track. There was still not a flicker of someone in any one of the chat rooms. I left it there for ten minutes, whilst I pretended to read a magazine. Still nothing.

The idea of visiting HMV crossed my mind, but one of the limitations I put on my search was videogame shops. To me, searching for an active DS in a game shop was about as rewarding as finding apes in the ape cage at a zoo. If the DS was successful in reaching out to non-gamers, then the potential wi-fi network would exist elsewhere.

I also thought about going underground, but quickly realised that if no one was using a DS in a station where passengers had longer to wait for their trains, it was doubtful that there would be anyone in the hustle and bustle of the tube. I made a compromise and went to Oxford Street, where I found a small corner in a busy coffee shop to sit in and try again. It was nearly lunchtime and the shop was close to both a number of fast food chains and the biggest entertainment shops in London. If anywhere in the capital had potential to show the DS' potential, this was it.

Again, my DS listed the chat rooms as empty. I ordered a cappuccino and sat down with my magazine, leaving my DS switched on. The coffee shop contained the usual mixture or tourists and businessmen, typical for the time of day. No one paid attention a guy in a corner reading a magazine. They were too busy deciding whether to have sprinkles to care.

Whilst my eyes scanned through the words of a random article, my brain didn't register the meaning. I frequently looked to my DS to see if anyone popped into the chat room, but no one did. I started to lessen the amount of coffee I took with each sip. Surely, this was the place to engage with my subject, wasn't it?

The table next to me suddenly grinded against the floor and I turned to see a sleek mobile phone vibrating on the metal surface. A man in a suit picked it up and looked at the text message he'd received. Another problem with the DS, I thought. It should have been designed to be continually on. I imagined having a DS in screensaver mode, tucked in my jacket's inner pocket. It would vibrate and I would open it to see someone in the area wanted to play Metroid Prime. I sighed inwardly. What a dream.

My coffee went stale and cold, so I left the coffee shop. It was clear that I was not going to find my subject. It seemed like the possibility we had not yet evolved into the creature I searched for was in fact a probability. Or perhaps, safari sponsors Nintendo had just not equipped me with the right tech to find these specimens. At any rate, my search had been fruitless.

I returned to St. Pancras and boarded the train home in defeat. Kids ran up and down the carriage, loud and boisterous after escaping school for another day. I sat down and turned the volume to Mario 64 up to maximum, hoping to escape the racket.

I felt a stare from someone and turned the volume back down. Someone tapped on my shoulder and a voice said, "Excuse me?"

I turned to see a young guy staring at me, grinning. At first, I cursed myself for taking out my DS in the school rush, but then saw that he held an unscratched, shiny new DS in his hands too.

"Did you buy that today?" he asked. Dumbstruck, I muttered something about importing and having it for a month and his eyes dulled for a moment, before asking if I wanted to play multiplayer Mario 64. After a slight hesitancy, I agreed and we played until the train pulled into my station. We exchanged MSN details and I watched the train leave as I walked up the platform, knowing I'd made a new friend.

Wi-fi, broadband, cups tied by string. Whatever you're using, it still needs two people to use it.

Chris Hicks
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