Nintendo & McDonalds Team Up

Next title out for the Nintendo DS: The Obesity Alliance.  Now you can not only be irritated by handhelds out in the general public, but while you’re trying to eat dinner as well!   Yippee!

 

Apparently Nintendo is really going after untapped public markets, perhaps in accordance with its new “reaching out to the non-gamer” image.  In addition to signing a deal with several restaurant chains in Canada (none of which, aside from Boston Pizza, I’ve ever heard of), they’ve also inked a massive deal with McDonalds. 

 

Both deals make the restaurants in question into little pockets of wireless wonder for DS players, who can wander in off the street, start up a Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection compatible game, and beep to their little hearts content.  While I am trying to enjoy my dinner in relative peace and quiet.  I don’t go out for dinner to be absconded by munchkins and their video games, and I personally would like to glare balefully at the executive that made this happen.  Not that I eat at either Boston Pizza or McDonalds, it would just make me feel better.

 

Not to mention the fact that now kids are fully able to ignore the somewhat healthy exercise offered by McDonalds Play Places, and sit on their well-padded bottoms watching their waistlines expand as they game.  I thought these companies were supposed to be aiding the greater awareness of the weight problem in society…at least that’s what they reassured us years ago.  Do you think parents care?  Pssh, not likely.  They now have an easy way to quiet a squalling youngster in public — the portable video babysitter.