Nintendo Planning Newspaper and Magazine Viewer for 3DS

One of the first DS info terminal applications put the system in nationwide McDonalds.

Think that pricey iPad of yours is going to be where you view your newspaper content in the coming years? Nintendo seems to have different plans, involving its latest portable gaming hardware, the 3DS.

In a Nikkei interview Thursday morning, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata detailed some of the new system's wireless features. "As you carry it with you while out and about, it will seek out and automatically connect with wireless LAN spots, and download information."

This is one of the features Nintendo announced for the system in its official reveal on the first day of E3 earlier this week. But in the interview, Iwata mentioned one possible application for this feature. "We're thinking about functionality where it will automatically acquire newspaper and magazine articles," said Iwata.

This sort of application should come as no surprise for those who've been keeping up with Nintendo's expansion of the current DS platform into an information terminal here in Japan. The system can be used at select shopping centers, train stations and fast food chains to download information and mini games, play Wi-Fi Connect-ready DS software, and download game demos.

Iwata's comments on 3DS's wireless capabilities was just a brief part of a larger interview about 3D gaming. You can read a summary of the full interview here.