DS rhythm game to recieve expansion packs in the form of GBA carts...in Japan.

In Japan the DS has seen a good number of fresh titles that have yet to make their way to the West. Daigasso Band Brothers (tentatively titled Jam With the Band over here), a music and rhythm title available since the Japanese launch, is one of these. The game has been heralded as a stylishly fun, fast and creative title (players can enter their own musical scores and "perform" with other DS players wirelessly) and now it will be the first DS title in Japan to recieve dedicated expansion via the GBA slot.

Nintendo will be releasing 20 additonal songs for Band Brothers on a GBA cartridge. The DS card will access the new songs and they can be played on accordingly in-game (of course you will need to have the game). Also of note, the songs themselves will ultimately be determined based on user vote (again, supposedly for japanese players) made on this Nintendo site. Voting will continue until August 1st of this year, with an expected release of August 22nd. As an added incentive to vote, Nintendo has promised a drawing for 100 free copies of the expansion pack from a pool of all voters.

Unfortuneately, this new development does not affect us western gamers directly as the game has not even been released on our shores (unconfirmed release dates are signalling a release later in the year.) However, this expansion is perhaps opening the door for other games as well... new stages in a fighting game, new cars in a racing game, new monsters in a certain monster-battling game, perhaps even new puppies in some dog-breeding game. It would seem Nintendo is very serious on playing to the expandability of the DS first with wirelessly downloadable content and now expansion packs.

Hopefully these promising initiatives will be offered on our shores as well later in the year. C-E will report more details as they develop.