Facebook Connect goes live with Nintendo DSi handheld

dsi-smallYou can now use a Nintendo DSi handheld video game system to share goofy photos with your Facebook friends.

Starting today at 5 pm Pacific time, the DSi has integrated Facebook Connect so that you can share photos with your Facebook friends list. You can take pictures with either of the DSi’s built-in cameras and upload the photos directly to your Facebook profile.

The DSi lets you take photos and then manipulate them in silly ways. You can share the photos via a Facebook icon on the system’s touch screen. The system has to be configured for wireless broadband access.

Nintendo DSi has sold more than 1.7 million units in the U.S. since its launch in April. Nintendo is the first video game company to get hip to Facebook. Microsoft is planning on integrating Facebook into Xbox Live and Sony has plans to integrate it into the PSP Go handheld. That means Facebook will be well on its way to socializing the traditional video game market by 2010, which Facebook game chief Gareth Davis says is the year the consoles will go social.

Adding social features to the game devices is a no brainer, since gaming has become much more of a social phenomenon.

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.