During E3 in June, Nintendo and Microsoft announced that the DSi and Xbox Live would be integrating Facebook Connect this year. Last Thursday, the integration went live in Japan. And it’s expected to go live in North America, where 1.7 million of the devices have been sold, at 5pm ET today.

With version 1.4 of the DSi firmware, users can login to Facebook via the new “F” icon in the DSi’s camera software. From there, users can upload photos to their Facebook profile. Photos uploaded from the DSi appear in a new “Nintendo DSi Pictures” album, much like photos uploaded from mobile devices appear in a “Mobile Uploads” album.

This marks the first time a gaming device has officially launched native Facebook Connect support – something we’re very likely to see more of in the months and years ahead. As games go more social, players will increasingly use Facebook across devices to share content from their favorite games and recruit friends to play together.

Here’s a video of Facebook on the DSi in action:

[images via Joystiq]