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Ninety per cent of DS owners can't be bothered to go online

Use of DS Wi-Fi Connection remains marginal

Ninety per cent of DS owners can't be bothered to go online
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DS

Figures just released by Nintendo suggest that take-up of the company's Wi-Fi Connection service for DS remains low, with only one in ten players trying it out.

To date, with around 30 million DSs sold worldwide, 3.5 million unique users have logged onto the service at least once, with over 100 million connections made. On average, that's about three online game sessions per unique user.

Back in August when the total number of DSs was around 20 million, two million users had logged on, with 70 million connections made, which gives similar percentage use figures.

This compares badly to other consoles. For example, a third of Wii users have logged onto the equivalent service, while 40 per cent of Xbox 360 owners have gone onto Xbox Live.

Part of the problem is that few DS games have made good use of the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. Best so far have been Animal Crossing: Wild World, 42 All-Time Classics and Metroid Prime: Hunters.

Still, with forthcoming titles such as Pokémons Diamond and Pearl extensively using the service for their Global Trade Station, as well as games such as Diddy Kong Racing, Panzer Tactics and SimCity, hopefully things will soon perk up.

Jon Jordan
Jon Jordan
A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon can turn his hand to anything except hand turning. He is editor-at-large at PG.biz which means he can arrive anywhere in the world, acting like a slightly confused uncle looking for the way out. He likes letters, cameras, imaginary numbers and legumes.