Starcraft for the Nintendo DS

This petition was created in order to convince Blizzard Entertainment to create a version of their popular Real Time Strategy game, Starcraft, for the recently released Nintendo DS portable game system.

Traditionally, Real Time Strategy games have been limited to the PC market, since they rely on the mouse for game play. There have been a few exceptions, such as Starcraft 64, but for the most part, Real Time Strategy games work best on the PC with a mouse.

However, the recently released Nintendo DS system introduces an entirely new type of control scheme for the portable gaming market. Using a stylus, your finger, or the included thumb stylus, users can interact with the game through the touch-sensitive bottom screen. Games that would never play properly on a portable system, such as first person shooters, can now be played with ease with the stylus.

The stylus control scheme could be used very effectively in a Nintendo DS rendition of Starcraft. Selecting units, issuing commands, and more would be very easy with the stylus, and very similar to the mouse, which would appeal to players of the PC version. The second, non touch-sensitive screen of the DS could be used to display statistics of the game, such as resources, and time left in a mission, as well as the currently selected units and their statistics.

There are other new features that the Nintendo DS brings to the portable gaming market that could be used with Starcraft. Using a proprietary wireless protocol by Nintendo, up to 16 Nintendo DS systems in relatively the same area can be linked together for wireless multiplayer game play. Starcraft would only need 8 players, unless Blizzard wished to expand on the Starcraft multiplayer on the Nintendo DS version. The Nintendo DS is also compatible with the 802.11b wireless network protocol. This could be used to connect Starcraft on the Nintendo DS to Blizzard's own Battle.net for online multiplayer gameplay either between DS systems or PC users. Communication between users would be an issue, as the Nintendo DS does not feature a keyboard. However, it has a built in microphone, as well as a jack for an external microphone. The microphones could be used for voice communication between Starcraft players instead of communicating via a keyboard interface.

This version of Starcraft for the Nintendo DS could either be a straight port of the PC Starcraft and Starcraft: Brood Wars, or a port with extra features, such as a single player campaign exclusive to the Nintendo DS, extending the storyline of the Starcraft universe. Either way, Starcraft for the Nintendo DS would likely sell very well.