Just five days following the April 22 release of
Pokemon Diamond and
Pearl for the Nintendo DS, Nintendo has announced that the games have jointly sold more than 1 million units in North America.
In a statement, the company said that the games represented the fast selling
Pokemon titles ever released since the franchise was introduced in the U.S. in 1998.
Last week
Nintendo announced that North American pre-orders for the games had exceed 500,000 units, and that the company expects the games to be among the top selling titles this year. The games have already become the best selling iterations of the series so far in Japan.
Building upon an already successful franchise and existing fan base,
Pokemon Diamond and
Pearl feature more than 100 new Pokemon not found in other games, as well as include the ability for players to import other Pokemon collected in other previously released games for the Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance. The games also include VoIP chat functionality over Nintendo's WiFi Connection, a new feature added for the Western release.
Nintendo's plans for the franchise will continue this summer with the release of
Pokemon Battle Revolution for the Wii, launching on June 25.
The upcoming title will allow
Diamond and
Pearl owners to use their DS handhelds as
controllers for the game. In addition, players will be able to export characters from these new DS games into the Wii title once it is available.
