"A chat program is already a hard-sell to a community of gamers. When Nintendo introduced PictoChat at E3, the company was still on the fence what to do with the product -- eventually it gave the software away as a feature of the system. Ping Pals is a glorified instant messenger for the Nintendo DS that, regardless of all the extras it offers users, is entirely redundant and ultimately an unnecessary addition to the DS library. Even if and when the Nintendo DS goes online, it's hard to imagine booting up a cartridge just to text-chat exclusively. Ping Pals, or a similar idea, should be a program that's an option embedded in existing game software...not as a standalone program. Regardless of its "additional" content it offers over PictoChat, Ping Pals is easily the most unnecessary product for the system.
IGN's Ratings for Ping Pals (DS)"
