Take me out to the ball game... and don't forget the DS...

I went to an exciting (hardly) Mariners game on Wednesday. It was a heated battle between the Mariners and another worthy title contender, the Florida Marlins... oooooo sounds like an action packed game huh?! Anyways, I have read a couple of blogs about the fabled Nintendo Fan Network that is setup at Safeco Field that allows you to download software directly to your DS to add functionality and enhance your bat swing watching experience.

As I arrived to the stadium I started to feel a little weird about whipping out my DS like a dork and downloading some software. Luckily, the download was really quick and once complete, I could roam the stadium and still maintain a connection. There are several aspects to the application that I found very cool... The coolest feature, IMO, was the pitch monitor, which tells you where the last pitch was thrown and what the call was. If you are like me, the signs are so alien to me, that it’s good to have that information on your DS.


Another feature that was pretty neat, but lacked any real application to the game, was the live feed that displayed the game with 5-8 seconds delay. It was sort of a cross between an instant replay, and delayed TV. I would watch the pitch in real time, then turn my eyes to the DS screen only to see the same pitch happen again.







In addition to these features, there is also a pitch by pitch analysis of other games in progress, and some small minigames that you could play and compare scores with other fan network users. You could also send messages to other users, but I never got it to work. I was told I could send questions to "Pat" but after a quick message of "Are the Mariners going to win?" (They didn’t btw.) I never got a response back.



One feature I was eager to try, but didn’t want to spend the real money on, was the food ordering service. It was not working during the game that I was at, but in theory, you can order food/drinks and have it delivered directly to your seat. The prices were 50 cents to a dollar more than the stand price, but would be a neat feature if I was lazy enough. Along with this was a handy index of where to find certain food locations, handy mainly because I wanted to get my hands on some delicious garlic fries. YUMMY!

All that being said, the DS fan network application worked as advertised. I would never pay money to use it, but it being a free service really helped the viewing experience. I know it probably won’t happen, but if they reduce the video delay that would certainly be a killer feature. The functionality of the application is great, and I'll be sure to bring my DS to the ball game every time I go. (Which is once a season :P)