Nintendo takes on Amazon Kindle with DS eBooks

Nintendo is again extending the range of the Nintendo DS with a deal that will see HarperCollins eBook cartridges released for that system later this month.

The 100 Classic Book Collection ranges from Shakespeare and Dickens to Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters. It will cost about £20 and will be available initially only in Britain. Readers will turn the pages by brushing a finger across the screen. If the collection is a success, Nintendo may expand the range of books available.

The new cartridge is yet another example of the eBook phenomenon, which had been advanced in the past by Amazon’s Kindle eBook reader and the Sony Reader. The Kindle is on back order at Amazon, which bodes well for its popularity in 2009, but it does not boast the install base of the Nintendo DS. Nor does either device have a comparable price point with the DS. That sound you’re hearing right now is the DS spitting out more money in Kyoto.