Games console maker Nintendo is adopting encryption technology developed by RSA Security to encrypt wireless traffic between its new Nintendo DS portable game console.
The game console is the company’s first major mobile gaming product since the popular Game Boy Advance, and contains the embedded messaging and communication tool, Pictochat with its wireless networking technology.
According to Nintendo’s press release, the DS’s wireless capabilities will initially allow up to four players to virtually blast the living daylights out of each other (and send taunting instant messages to their victims) on DS units up to 100 feet away.
The wireless feature uses both the standard 802.11 wireless technology and Nintendo’s own proprietary digital rights management protocol and will also allow certain games to be shared and played interactively among users.
Naturally, with all that expensive software flying through the air, game publishers and developers needed to be assured that their games wouldn’t be disappearing into the ether, so the RSA BSAFE technology has been brought in to protect the digital rights of game publishers for titles shared wirelessly.
The same technology has also been employed by Nintendo to protect game demos that are issued on a trial basis for play in retail stores and other demo environments.
Nintendo also intends to introduce an Internet ‘hub’ to allow users to challenge fellow DS gamers anywhere on the planet.