After a very subtle tip off from an industry insider I was able to track down a story that says that Nintendo is expected to announce that their upcoming free WiFi service for the DS will be available at McDonalds. Mickey D s already has a pay WiFi service at 6,000 of their restaurants, but the Nintendo service will indeed by free, according to the New York Times.

The NYT article goes on to quote an NPD Group analyst as calling it the kids version of Starbucks wireless hot spots.

The wireless service will be provided by Wayport, which expects to add the service to an addition thousand restaurants by June, according to the article.

Perrin Kaplan, Veep at Nintendo America, sais that there are still no plans to incorporate Pictochat into WiFi. Maybe Nintendo will hit us up with a Pictochat 2 next year.

You can hop on over to the McDonald's site to find out what restaurants are near your home and if any offer WiFi, be prepared for much teeth gnashing. (The results list if they have WiFi or not.)

McDonald's Locator [Official Site]

Nintendo WiFi Deal [New York Times]

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