Nintendo sells 500k DS units in Australia

[Australian exclamation term for surprise here]!!! Sorry, I don’t know any Aussie slang, so my placeholder will have to do for this news today: Nintendo has cracked the 500,000 mark for DS’s sold in Australia!

Plus, I’m pretty jealous of their Wi-fi hotspot set up, as described to us by the chaps over at IGN:

Nintendo Australia, in conjunction with Telstra, today announced that Aussie players now have access to over 1,000 Telstra Wireless Hotspots to feed their DS Wi-Fi habit. Destinations available run the gamut from McDonald’s restaurants and Starbucks cafes through to airports, hotels and city Hotzones (throughout Melbourne and Sydney). The list really is massive, and you can check it out in all its glory at Telstra’s website. Just click the link and you can download a spreadsheet with every Hotspot in the country, or you can do a search for your nearest Hotspot using this page.

The service won’t cost you a cent either – it’s completely complimentary for Nintendo DS Wi-Fi users. Connecting couldn’t be simpler either; just hit a Hotspot, search for a connection and the Telstra service will appear, unlocked and ready to use

That’s great, because we Yanks have to go to a McDonald’s or something to get free DS Wi-fi service, and that’s unfortunate. That clown scars me almost as much as the nutritional information for a Big Mac does. Almost.