One of the video game industry’s most celebrated franchises is officially hotter than ever. Within just five days of availability, more than 1 million copies of Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl for the portable Nintendo DS have sold in the United States since Sunday’s launch; a faster rate than any previous Pokemon games since the franchise’s U.S. introduction, almost a decade ago. To date, more than 155 million copies of Pokemon games have sold worldwide.
Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl are poised to become two of the top-selling games of 2007 in the United States. More than one half million people pre-ordered the games before launch. Additionally, thousands of people attended the kickoff launch event in New York, and demand for the games continues to be off the charts. These latest versions of Pokemon games were introduced in Japan on Sept. 28, 2006, and have already been purchased by more than 5 million video gamers there.
