At the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences’ D.I.C.E. conference in Las Vegas, Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of sales & marketing, announced a bunch of new upcoming DS features. These new features include a DS download service, that will allow you to go to participating retailers to download demo versions of games such as Tetris DS, and Pokemon Trozei. A video clip of the upcoming WI-Fi enabled Metroid Prime Hunters will also be available, as will other games. The selection of games at these Download Service kiosks will change quarterly.

Fils-Aime also announced that Metroid Prime Hunters will support voice chat over WI-FI internet before and after matches, so players can talk to those on their friends list. Hunters will arrive on March 20th of this year, the same day Tetris DS is scheduled to reach store shelves.

Fils-Aime also went on to say that the DS is selling tremendously, with 14.4 million units being sold worldwide through December. The DS has also had the fatest-selling video game launch ever in Japan, selling more than 5 million units within 13 months.

Lastly, the Nintendo VP said that the DS Lite, a smaller version of the original DS, will be available next month in Japan, and that the release date in other regions will be announced later.

[i]- Mike Shaeffer[/i]