Nintendo's Wi-Fi Connection service for the Nintendo DS has now been used by a million DS players around the world.

Much was made of Nintendo's unwillingness to enter the online gaming market, but late in 2005 they entered it with a bang with the release of Mario Kart DS. This was joined by Tony Hawk's American Sk8land and Animal Crossing Wild World (released on March 31 in Europe). Nintendo has now announced that 27 million connections have been made between a million DS players from all over the world.

"Players are embracing our model of a compelling, safe, easy-to-use wireless gaming service," said Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America executive vice-president of sales and marketing. "Those one million users represent more than 27 million game sessions."

Not bad statistics for a handheld that only has two online enabled games available in Europe. This number will obviously grow in 2006, with Animal Crossing, Metroid Prime: Hunters and Tetris DS all set to arrive in the next few months.