A few days ago, a never seen before orange logo was spotted in the box art for the game Theatrhythm Final Fantasy and left many of us Nintendo gamers, fans and after all consumers wondering if it was simply a change in the name and logo, a re-branding, or if it would come with a whole new infrastructure and features similar to the Xbox Live and Playstation Network (hopefully not since this last one was hacked twice).

And for the better, after formerly announcing Nintendo Network, Mr.Satoru Iwata detailed some internet wise features that are to come to the new generation of systems.

Nintendo Network will offer us not only paid and free downloadable content (DLC) but downloadable games themselves, bringing for the first time to Nintendo systems fully downloadable retail titles. Satoru Iwata stated that this is coming to the Wii U as well, and the 3DS.

"This concept [download of retail titles] was built into the design of the Nintendo 3DS, and we already have the necessary infrastructure"

I have the feeling that the updates the Nintendo eShop received previously, were taking into account the new features that are being revealed now. Since retail titles may take from 2gb to 4gb (as of now), downloads are going to take a lot of time, much longer than the current eShop titles, so the ability to close your system and resume the download whenever you feel like will be handy there.

"We will prepare the same infrastructure for the Wii U. However, we have not decided the concrete timing of when we will start it."

But this is going to be a much larger work for the Wii U, unlike 3DS titles which probably won't take more than 4gb of space - although the company that manufactures the game cards have said that they can make cards up to 8gb its very unlikely that developers will use that much of space for a handheld game, at least for now - Wii U games will obviously be larger than current Xbox 360/PS3 games, taking in account the graphics, details, HD textures... so internal memory might be an issue here.

It has been revealed that a personal account system will be available for the Wii U, so each member of a family can have its own account in the family system, nothing has been directly revealed about this kind of feature in the 3DS, i believe Nintendo will not make this available for the 3DS as it is a personal system as whole, but who knows.

Nintendo Network is Nintendo's equivalent of the Xbox Live and Playstation Network services, and its surely a step in the right direction.

How do you feel now? Will you be getting retail games via download or stick to the more traditional method?

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Thank you for reading, comments and +1's are much appreciated!

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I'm Happy to announce that my blog about the Resident Evil Revelations demo was featured at http://3dsbuzz.com home page, I'd love if you take a look and leave a comment there!

<--- 19/01/12 (3DS Game DemoView - Resident Evil: Revelations)