That the PokéWalk says it uses infrared to transmit between the DS unit raises some questions. To the best of my knowledge, none of the DS family has a built-in infrared transceiver. What does this mean? Inadvertently, it tells us that HG/SS might ship as a special infrared cartridge.
Why's that, you ask?
This is Personal Trainer: Walking, which released last November in Japan and just a week or so ago in North America. Read it and you'll see it's basically the PokéWalk minus the Pokémon:
Read elsewhere on that page and you'll see that the Game Card for this title is called an "Infrared Game Card" and the
included graphic shows that the walking device communicates via infrared with the game card itself, which, everything says, is actually equipped with an infrared transceiver built right into the game card.
The graphic that yaminokame posted above shows the exact same thing: the PokéWalk being pointed right at the game card for purposes of the infrared transmission.
So what does this mean? The obvious is that HG/SS will apparently ship on these new infrared-enabled game cards, which in and of itself isn't much, but indirectly it would seem to have a significant effect. For one thing, I have to imagine that the infrared game cards cost more to manufacture per unit than do the standard DS game cards, which has implications as far as what one copy of Heart Gold or Soul Silver will cost. For another thing, this would seem to indicate that D/P/Pt
are not directly compatible with the PokéWalk, given that those titles are on standard DS game cards.
How this technology and the associated peripheral made their way to the Pokémon franchise becomes evident when one notices that Creatures, Inc., who developed Ranger 2, handles some of the franchise's non-video game merchandise and holds a third of the franchise's copyright, developed Personal Trainer: Walking.
Interesting all around.
