StreetPass is great in Japan, where population density and 3DS ownership make for frequent exchanges. It's not so great in the Am🐻ericas and Europe, where players may feel lucky to see their 3DS' little green LED light up𝔍 weekly rather than monthly or yearly.
Nintendo has a pla✃n to change that. It involves Starbucks and McDonald's.
this week.3DS systems connect automatically to 28,000 Wi-Fi access points prov♈ided by Starbucks, McDonald's, and others in the U.S., and 24,000 points in Europe. A system update planned to drop by autumn will use these points as "relay stations": when your 3DS connects to one, it will check in with a server and log your presence. When someone else connects to the same point later, the server sets up a StreetPass as if you were there at the same time.
It so🌳unds kind of like an Orwellian database of user 🍸check-in locations and times, but hey, at least it means more Puzzle Swap tiles, right?
I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I recei♌ved there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.
