Nintendo slipping DS handhelds into schools, McDonald's training sessions
By Darren Murph 
posted March 21st 2010 11:39PM
posted March 21st 2010 11:39PM
What's a global gaming company to do once they've soundly dominated the portable market? Why, covertly get the DS into schools and restaurants, of course! Shigeru Miyamoto, who created undercover gems like Donkey Kong and The Legend of Zelda, recently informed the AP that his company would be rolling the DS out "in junior high and elementary schools in Japan starting in the new school year," though few details beyond that were available. We do know, however, that this invasion into the education sector is more than just a fluke, with Miyamoto noting that this very area is where he is "devoting [himself] the most." Of course, the Big N already has a nice stable of mind-bending titles, but getting actual teachers to embrace the device in the classroom would be another thing entirely. In related news, select McDonald's eateries in Japan will be using the DS to train part-time workers, though mum's the word on whether the Cooking Mama franchise will be cashing in here.
Minimum wage cooking mama.
@crapNstuff
How will they train the McD's employees? Get the right order of lettuce-tomato-patty? What ingredients goes into what burgers? This doesn't seem so productive...
Microsoft can do the same once the Curior materializes. Coming from somebody who has been the Educational Tech field, I can see THAT unit really revolutionizing school and education by and large.
@cwalters74 Not essentially video games. It'll change the form that the content is provided. These kids that are in school are born into a world where advances in Tech are commonplace and its high-time that happens in Education. That little gadget, the DS, can help them learn in a way we can only begin to comprehend.
And NIN rips yet another page from the Apple play book.
@kspraydad Nintendo has literally been doing this before Apple existed.
I thought I was going to school?
@MishkaGreen I don't see how this will help them learn. Especially given that this is a basically a gaming device - they'll just end up playing games on this.
Where is this society going?
how bout letting people order, and pay from their ds... Only enter the order, once the person has paid for it.. It will reduce time spent on drive through, and free-up employe time.. As in free-up employe time, i mean mcdonals needs to higher less people... Won't happen overnight, but support the ds, psp, iphone, blackberry, symbian, android, windows mobile, web-os, and bada? and it will pick-up overnight...
@Nimer55
overtime* not overnight...
why can't i edit my post?
@Atkins Its all about control, educators simply need to keep them "locked" and designate them for educational software, its not extremely difficult.
Now I can see all the jobs created by this government - how refreshing.
If my teacher hads that to me I will pimp slap her and tell her to bring me back an ipad in 2 hours.
Seriously the only good thing the ipad can be used for is education. Apple needs to do this
@Massive Poop
It could also be used in hospitals.
You just got pwnd. XD
@Atkins Im currently a sophmore in high school and we have a MASSIVE amount of HUGE books. We also need seperate binders for each class (more junk)
if we had ipads or other small portable devices ( I use ipads because you don't need to know anything about a computer to use one) then the school system would probaly be saving money on books, the students would be happy, and I get to own (rent) a cool peice of hardware
@Massive Poop I would think one of those convertible Eee tablets would be better in a school setting than an iPad. Typing a twitter update would be fine on a touch keyboard, writing down the contents of three chalkboards... notsomuch
It'd be really awesome if waiters at restaurants could take orders on these.
in McDonald's we have a thing called wireless ordering machine, its the same size of the ipad but 5times thicker. This thing helped a lot during the Olympics. Also we use that thing to train the new employees for window.
McDonalds Training: Beef Edition
McDonalds Training: Chicken Edition
McDonalds Training: PETA Edition
@MishkaGreen Point taken. Still, why do the kids need to scrap their eyes with those devices even in school? It will be expensive for the schools also. And using something like this won't make them tech savvy... Or am I wrong?
@Massive Poop Personally I do not see the urgent need for kids to use a device like this, but if it's the case the 10" screen will definitely be a better choice.
@(Unverified) "window"? What is that?
@Massive Poop Hmmm... when you put it that way... :)
@Atkins Both are good points, I can't argue with that. It will be pricy and I can agree it won't make them anymore tech savvy, but I'll might be a shift in a new direction when it comes to Education.