Back at the end of November last year, AM3 unveiled a brand new service for Nintendo DS owners whereby they could use microSD cards to download licensed media (be it music or movies) via its DSvision programme. The plan was to launch back on 6th March 2008, but that date came and went without any news. Now it has finally arrived, though.

Japanese interactive content providers AM3 and DaiNippon Printing have now started DSvision, the fee-based service that is currently bringing anime and manga to owners of the Nintendo DS.

The basic DSvision package requires a hardware bundle that costs around US$38 / £20,and this includes a 512mb microSD card, a DSvision card adapter for connection to the DS and a USB reader / writer. Once acquired, consumers can then go and download content from the official website onto their PCs, transfer the media to the microSD and then watch or read (novels are available for download as well) whenever they feel like it!

The original plan was for three hundred pieces of media content to be made available from launch day, but some sources have complained that only thirty actually came when the service first went live. However, new content is now being added on an hourly basis, with manga, anime episodes and text novels ranging from around the £0.50 price-point to around £5.00, which certainly seems extremely reasonable. The aim now is for about a thousand items to be made available within the first year online, drawing in a massive two million customers within that same time-frame.

An official video clip of how the DSvision service actually works has now been added to YouTube to give people an idea of how it works. Check it out below:

Sadly nothing has even been discussed regarding a potential Western release, but if the level of success is indeed great enough, it would be extremely bad business sense to not at least test the waters outside Japan.

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